March Madness on the Horizon
It is the most exciting time of the year for college basketball fans. March Madness is finally around the corner, excitement and tension are growing as fan bases around the country anxiously wait for selection Sunday to determine their teams’ fate. Fans are starting to prepare themselves for all of the emotions that come along with the NCAA Division 1 Tournament.
The NCAA Division 1 National Tournament, more commonly known as March Madness, is a single-elimination tournament that features 68 Division 1 college basketball teams. It starts on March 15th and will run until April 4th.
32 Division 1 Conference Champions get automatic bids to the tournament, while the rest has to wait for selection Sunday, where a selection committee chooses the rest of the field based on their record, quality of wins and loses, etc… The 68 teams are then split up into 4 regions and seeded by rank one through sixteen. The tournament then begins and College Basketball fans are immediately spoiled with 32 games in the first week. The single-elimination games continue until one team remains and a champion is crowned.
Right now, 5 teams have punched their ticket to the big dance by winning their respective conference championship. Murray State, Longwood, Loyola Chicago, Chattanooga, and Georgia State are among the first teams to secure a spot in the coveted tournament. 27 out of the 32 conferences are yet to crown a post-season champion, so be on the lookout for conference tournament games that are almost equally as exciting as March Madness.
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For many schools that don’t play in a “power 5 conference” (the ACC, Big 10, Big 12, Pac-12, and SEC), winning their conference tournament is their only way to gain entry into March Madness. This is because they do not play enough quality opponents in the regular season to impress the selection committee. This adds additional drama before the tournament even starts. Yesterday, Chattanooga made a buzzer-beater from 30 feet away to send them to the NCAA tournament, and on Sunday, Longwood bested Winthrop 79–58 in the Big South final to give the school their first-ever March madness appearance. This is just a glimpse of what is to come in the next couple of weeks; it is called March Madness for a reason after all.
Last year, Baylor beat Gonzaga by 16 in the final to give the Bears their first national championship in school history. Baylor will have to go through a loaded field to defend their title this year, a multitude of teams have enough star power and chemistry to make a championship run.
A team that I am particularly excited to watch in march is Arizona. I am biased as an Arizona fan, but the combination of size, athleticism, and chemistry that Arizona possesses is a deadly combo that could help them make a deep run come tourney time after a three-year hiatus from the tournament. Led by first-year head coach Tommy Lloyd, the Wildcats are poised to make some noise.
Another team that will be a force is Gonzaga. Gonzaga is coming into March looking for revenge with last year’s runner-up finish fresh on their minds. Foward Drew Timme has been a problem for opposing defenses all season, the Junior is averaging 17 points and 6 rebounds while seven-foot freshman Chet Holmgren is averaging fourteen points and 9 rebounds of his own. This deadly combo has led Gonzaga to a 25–3 record with a 1 seed in the tournament all but locked up.
March Madness is coming up fast and fans are preparing themselves for the next month of College Basketball. Underdog stories, dramatic endings, bracket challenges, and more make March Madness one of the most intriguing post-seasons in all of the sports.
