After watching the past four weeks of college hoops, I must say that March Madness is the best postseason format in all of sports.
No other postseason offers the exhilarating highs and excruciating lows that the four-week-long, single elimination tournament gives fans. From the avid followers to the casual watchers, March Madness gives everyone a chance to have a voice with various bracket challenges. This year’s tournament gave fans and television networks every possible outcome for a college basketball game, minus a buzzer-beater.
Let’s say you’re pulling for the underdog and looking for upsets. Look no further than the first weekend of the tournament. Little-known 15 seed Lehigh (Patriot League) knocked off powerhouse Duke, and even less-known 15 seed Norfolk State (MEAC conference) defeated Big 12 champion Missouri. Nearly everyone in the country had his or her bracket busted.
In the NCAA tournament, teams from the Patriot League, MEAC and the Mid-American conference are given a chance to compete against schools from the Big East, Big 12 and ACC. Teams from these leagues play all year for an opportunity to play in the Big Dance, and George Mason, VCU and Butler are just a few of the Cinderella stories that have kept fans on the edge of their seats throughout the years.
Maybe you like comebacks or games that come down to the wire. Just follow Kansas’ improbable run to the national championship game. The Jayhawks trailed late in four of its five tournament victories, including its semifinal game against Ohio State. It took late surges for the Jayhawks to defeat Purdue, North Carolina State and North Carolina. The Jayhawks trailed by 11 in the second half of a Final Four game before going on a furious rally to knock off the favored Buckeyes.
For those who hate to see the underdogs win, this year’s Final Four featured four storied programs, and the championship game showcases college basketball’s two winningest programs in Kentucky and Kansas. The lowest seed to make the Final Four was Louisville, a program led by a national championship-winning coach, at four.
The Kentucky-Kansas championship game is the equivalent of an Alabama-Notre Dame national championship in college football: Two blueblood programs, battle-tested coaches and rosters full of blue chip recruits and NBA prospects.
The story lines are endless — whether it’s John Calipari versus Bill Self part two (Self defeated Calipari’s Memphis team in the 2008 championship game) or Anthony Davis versus Thomas Robinson (Davis was named AP Player of the Year over Robinson). So, no matter which team wins tonight’s championship game, the real winners are the fans.
