Frank Spadavecchia and Devin Bock
Staff Writers
All of the conference tournaments are coming to an end, which means it is time for the big dance. Left and right teams are punching their tickets into the NCAA Men’s College Basketball Tournament. With all of the upsets and close games that have taken place this year, the NCAA Tournament is looking like it may be one of the best yet. Look at a team like St. John’s, a team that won’t make the tournament but beat two top five teams in Duke and Villanova in back-to-back games. These types of games have occurred across the country this year in college basketball. Therefore, we can only expect that these good Mid-Major teams have a solid chance to upset the higher ranked Power 5 conference teams. Leading to one of the most exciting March Madness’ we may ever see.
Teams have two ways to get into the tournament. The easiest is by simply winning their conference. Each team has their own individual conference tournament which they have a chance to win resulting in the conference champion moving on with an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament. Many upsets in these conference championships have already taken place. For example, teams like Nevada who were expected to breeze through their tournament lost in their championships. Number 1 seed Xavier lost in overtime to unranked Providence. These are just a few of the upsets that took place this weekend. The other way is by putting your fate in the hands of the NCAA selection committee. This means that the selection committee will look at each team’s season and determine whether or not they deserve to be in the tournament. Because of this, teams can end up being on the bubble. Teams that are on the bubble have records that are both worthy and not worthy of making the tournament. Then on Selection Sunday their fate is decided by the selection committee which will either make or break the dreams of many colleges.
Then from this point on the real madness begins. Now teams will have to play opponents they have never played against, resulting in a totally new atmosphere of basketball. Each team has a clean slate and every game is single elimination meaning that it only takes one off-day to cause a total upset. It is this complete unpredictability that causes this mayhem and confusion surrounding the tournament. This time period of “March Madness” is the pinnacle of college basketball. For any new basketball viewers this is a perfect way to submerge yourself into the college basketball scene. So find a nice spot on your couch with some snacks in one hand and your brackets in the other cause it’s March Madness baby!
