What is the Madness over March?
By: Dylan Weiler
March for most is a dull month. With little to no holidays, and no breaks from school, it feels tedious and never ending. To me, March means something completely different than it may mean to others. March means I get to watch my favorite college basketball teams in an aggressive head-to-head battle with nothing to lose. This lovely 68-team elimination tournament is what makes every March worth living.
March Madness is a Men’s and Women’s basketball tournament that completely takes over the lives of 12-14 million people every year. The premise of the tournament is simple, 68 Division 1 schools play it out till there are only 2 teams left. The winner of this final game is declared the winner of the tournament and gets to take home the NABC National Championship trophy.
What makes the games so entertaining is the blood, sweat and tears you see the players put into every single match on the court. Diving for loose balls, taking charges, getting rebounds, all hustle parts of the game you never normally see in the NBA. The energy is so raw with college bands, student spectators, and parents of players in these March Madness stadiums, you can tell every team genuinely knows that if they make one mistake their season will be over. Fans dress up in all kinds of different gear to support their teams, and 40,000 seat arenas are always packed for every game. Making March Madness so much better.
Another admirable thing about the tournament is the challenge of having the best bracket possible. Each year a week or two before the tournament starts, people can make predictions about how they think the tournament will go for each team. The overbearingly slim chances of getting all these predictions perfect are 1 in 9.22 quintillion. This keeps the challenge fun for everyone and really locks all viewers’ attention spans into the games. People even like to bet on their made brackets, registering $3.1 Billion worth of bets placed per year on March Madness.
March Madness truly brings everyone’s spirits up in a time when they’re down and in need of something to look forward to. It unites people together through the classic love of sports and promotes positive exposure to these colleges and players country wide that are working hard every day. This is truly what the Madness of March is.
