You're sitting at home a few days before the first tip-off of the infamous March Madness NCAA Basketball Tournament. You start filling out your bracket and think you have the perfect one; this is it, you've finally got it right. Then you backtrack and second guess all of your picks (hopefully you used pencil). You change a few picks you're unsure about, submit your bracket and wait impatiently for the opening weekend.
The first couple of games you get right, and you get all of this unwarranted confidence in your sports knowledge. Before you know you know it, a double digit ranked team takes down your dark-horse final four candidate. No sweat, right? Wrong. The next day you go an unimpressive 60 percent in your picks.
Third round rolls along, and you still have three of your Final Four predictions intact, until the team you predicted to go to the finals is upset by a much lower seed. Your bracket is officially over, but it ends up being okay because now you can enjoy the madness that is the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament.
As frustrating as it is with brackets being busted, it is truly one of the greatest sporting events year in and year out. It seems to never disappoint. Every year there are tremendous stories from each team, and each year America can get behind a Cinderella team.
It is one of the few sporting events that is exciting for a whole month, and no matter how frustrating it can be, you can't get away from the TV and watch every game if you are a sports fan. It is all one of the few championships that gives everyone a fair shot at the title, whether you are undefeated powerhouse Kentucky, the winner of a mid-major conference or a team that just barely got in. Everyone has a chance to take home the hardware and win the hearts of students, alumni and faculty forever.
Being a part of the tournament with Maryland a contender is an inexplicable feeling. The buzz around campus surrounding every game can't be matched. And just imagine how crazy our campus would be if Maryland surprised everyone and made a run. Maybe next year.
