The best tournament in sports comes around once a year and fascinates the world for 3 weeks in March and April. March Madness is the most unpredictable tournament in sports, and at times the most exciting couple of weeks of the year. This year's tournament will be no exception, with multiple buzzer beaters already happening in conference tournaments.
The best teams in the nation are Gonzaga (26-3), Arizona (29-3), Baylor (26-6) Auburn (27-5) and Kentucky (25-6). Other top powerhouses like Duke, Kansas, Villanova and UCLA will also be seeded in the top 5 of their regional brackets come tourney time.
There have also been some cinderella stories from otherwise mediocre teams. Every year, several surprise colleges have tremendous years and find themselves in the thick of things come March. This year schools like Providence College (25-4), Arkansas (24-7) and Colorado State (25-4) have had excellent seasons despite not being historically prestigious schools. While some still look to win their conference tournaments.
Providence College has had an incredible season under longtime coach Ed Cooley. The Friars started the season hot, going 13-1 before falling to Marquette in January. Since then there only two losses have come from the shooting of Villanova. Last night they were bounced out of the Big East Championship semifinal by Creighton. There improbable run will either way be a historic one in th school's history.
Selection Sunday is tomorrow and the First Four starts Tuesday the 15th, meaning were only three days away from the start of this year's tournament.
One of the biggest reasons for the obsession over these three weeks is the annual March Madness Bracket Challenge. Most people have heard of the bracket challenge from the possible grand prize offered by Warren Buffet each year for a perfect bracket of $1 million. The challenge is in it's second year being closed to the public, and only available to Berkshire Hathaway employees.
There's still hope though!
Technically there is a 1 in 9.2 quintillion chance of hope as is every bracket to be perfect.
But that won't stop the true lovers of this magical time of year in college hoops. Once the tournament starts every team in the bracket has an equal chance of winning it all. In the tournament's history, the lowest seed to ever win it all was the #8 seeded Villanova in 1985. More recently there has been few low seeds to win, but in 2018 the first ever 16 seed would advance past the first round when UMBC defeated the #1 ranked Virginia. Just goes to show anything can, and will happen. One can only guess what upsets will happen in this year's madness, but will they guess them all?
Stay tuned as we will be continuing coverage of the March Madness tournament.
Z.D.