Madness is here

When it comes to sports, the month of March is pretty loaded.

The NFL’s free agency period is underway, and MLB teams are back on the field for preseason games, but the best event of them all is in full swing: the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament, better known as March Madness.

March Madness is undoubtedly the best when it comes to basketball. With countless games happening back-to-bac in the first few rounds, it is hard to find another event in sports that packs this much excitement in- to such a short period of time.

It is one of the few times in sports where you can turn on the TV at almost any point during the day and catch great basketball being played.

That is what makes the opening rounds of March Madness so great.

Upsets start happening almost immediately, and the bracket that looked perfect just hours earlier suddenly falls apart.

Back in 2023, No. 16 seeded Fairleigh Dickinson University stunned the country by beating No. 1 seeded Purdue University in the first round 63-5.

A year before that in 2022, the Saint Peter’s University Peacocks completed one of the most improbable runs in NCAA Tournament history, becoming the first No. 15 seed ever to reach the Elite Eight, beating No. 2 seeded University of Kentucky as well as No. 3 seeded Purdue.

This season, High Point University managed to take down the much higher-seeded Wisconsin University. Virginia Commonwealth University took down the University of North Carolina. Duke University almost fell to Sienna College.

Every year, there seems to be a team that comes out of nowhere and captures the attention of the entire country.

Schools that most casual fans most likely have never seen play during the regular season suddenly become the story of the tournament. It also shows how unpredictable the tournament really is. Teams that dominated their conference all season can suddenly be sent home in the first weekend, while underdogs continue to build momentum with each game they win.

Once the tournament starts, rankings and expectations do not always mean much. Every year, millions of fans try to predict how the tournament will play out, filling out brackets with hopes of getting every game right. But almost every year, those hopes disappear quickly.

One upset can ruin an entire bracket, and by the end of the first weekend, most fans realize their predictions did not stand a chance.

Could the University of Connecticut Huskies bring another trophy home to Storrs? Could a team like the Duke University Blue Devils or University of Arkansas get a chance to be crowned champions.

Whether it is a buzzerbeater or a Cinderella team making a deep run, the tournament always delivers moments people remember for years.