It begins about the second week of March, when everyone I know is suddenly obsessed with college basketball for the first time in a year. It is what everyone talks about, with the “upsets” and “Cinderella stories” and “busted brackets.” These college basketball teams go “dancing,” which I love because I always picture a West Side Story sort-of battle on the basketball court to see who is the best dancer in the country. (I’m sure we’re on the same page.) It’s the NCAA Division I men's basketball championship; it’s March Madness.
I’m not all that familiar with basketball. Yeah, I played in elementary school, and my parents forced me to play in seventh grade for the middle school basketball team. But I’ve never been an avid viewer of sports on TV, and surely not basketball at that. So why am I, a non-basketball-lover in the midst of papers, midterms, and Macroeconomic worksheets, refreshing the March Madness bracket pool after every game to see what place I’m in? Maybe it’s the incentive; I could potentially win about $400. Maybe it’s that I want to make sure I’m still ranked in the standings ahead of my family, but at this point, that can change with one win or loss. I think it’s because I—like most people—love to see competitive happy endings. People like to see the Bachelor propose, they like to watch the Super Bowl, they like to watch Ryan Seacrest announce the winner of American Idol, and they like to see which horse runs the fastest to win the Kentucky Derby. With all of these, there’s a competition, a loser, and a winner. (Okay, The Bachelor contestants might not have to work that hard, but people still love it.)
The thing people love about these winners and losers is that none of them are set in stone. In the first round of this year’s tournament, 10 teams ranked in the double digits beat out single digit teams. There is truly no way to predict who will win a particular game. Sometimes high-ranked teams come in with better-than-everyone attitudes while low-ranked teams come in with give-it-all-we’ve-got attitudes and completely destroy the high-ranked teams. Yes the upsets mess up thousands of people’s brackets, but to witness teams like Stephen F. Austin and Middle Tennessee State unexpectedly winning, teams that most viewers have never heard of, is a really cool experience. To see a team with a one-point lead and fifteen seconds to go, to see a team make a half-court buzzer shot at the end of the second overtime, to see the coach finally celebrate his team’s long-deserved win—that’s the madness people live for.
There is a 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 chance of completing an absolutely perfect bracket. In comparison, there is a 1 in 292 million chance of winning the Powerball jackpot if you buy just one ticket. But people don’t enter their office bracket pool or the online pool in competition with their college buddies to just waste $10 on 63 foolish games of unpredictable basketball. This tournament showcases underdogs. It gives college basketball teams the chance to do what they love and have the opportunity to prove that they are the best of the best. It brings people together, avid year-round sports-lovers and non-sports-lovers who only somewhat enjoy basketball throughout the month of March. That, I believe, is the maddest part of all.
