March Madness and the Culture Around It

March Madness 

It’s march 7th. For most people, this date doesn’t mean anything, but for me, it means that the best time of the year is less then a week away. The selection show for the 2018 NCAA bracket comes out on Sunday. The 68 team field will be revealed and immediately after, thousands of brackets will be made to try to predict the games and the upsets. Most people will fail, but it’s still fun for everyone.

This tournament is special because there is room for cinderella stories. For instance in the NBA playoffs, there’s no room for that because of the 7 game series. I’m sure that Middle Tennessee State, a college of about 22 thousand students, couldn’t beat Michigan State in a 7 game series, but it only takes one game and they did that in 2016, knocked off the #2 seeded Spartans, 90-81. This is what makes March Madness great. I had never even heard of Middle Tennessee State, but for that 2 hour period, I was a huge Blue Raiders fan.

The upsets aren’t the only good thing about this tournament. It’s also just the culture. Last year, tons of the people in my class got computers and at any spare time in the day, we would have our eyes trained to the games. And everyone was super engaged and hyped. I pride myself on following college basketball all year, but honestly, it doesn’t matter that much. Anyone can enjoy march madness. Last year, Harrison won our ESPN Tounerment Challenge. I 100% know more about college basketball then him, but it didn’t end up matter which I actually like, even though it hurts a hardcore fan.

Another great thing about march madness is all the teams that haven’t been there before and are just getting their first experience for them and their fans. You have your Duke, your, Kansas, your Kentucky, your North Carolina and sure, those teams are cool to watch with multiple NBA prospects, but I think the more entertaining games are the first timers. 2 years ago, I remember watching a first round matchup between Kentucky, a team that has been to the tournament 57 times and won 8 championships, and Stony Brook. It was Stony Brook’s first time in March Madness. With about 30 seconds left in the game and Kentucky up by 25, the Stony Brook fans begin to chant “Let’s go Seawolves”. They knew they weren’t going to win, but they didn't care. They were just happy to be there.
Part of the reason I like March Madness is that they play basketball. I
think basketball is the best sport to watch on TV. If March Madness was

34 games of baseball, I wouldn’t like it as much. Now that’s not a knock on baseball, I love that sport, but basketball is more entertaining on TV. Also, I love playing basketball. I remember when I was 3, I would play basketball at 24 Hour Fitness and it was super fun. My team was called the Layups, even though we couldn’t even make them. Basketball is just fun to play and watch, there’s not much else to say.

Even though March Madness is amazing every year, this year it is surrounded with controversy. In the fall, a report came out about many colleges paying high school athletes so they would come to their school, which is illegal in the NCAA. This lead to repercussions for major schools, such as Louisville, who lost their Hall of Fame head coach Rick Pitino and was stripped from their 2013 National Championship. Also, the projected #1 overall pick in this years NBA draft, Deandre Ayton from Arizona was reportedly paid $100,000 to play for Arizona. Now this scandal won’t have a huge effect on this year's tournament, but it could in the future. Even with these dark clouds above this year and the years to come, I’m sure it will still be just as awesome.