By Chase C.
With that spring feeling in the air many are excited about the upcoming fever that many accompany it. Some staples of that spring fever are obvious. Spring Break which every student looks forward to for a whole week of staying up late and making bad decisions. My personal favorite part of the spring is feeling the weather slowly getting warmer and warmer. Although living in Colorado you never know when you will get a snowstorm after just wearing shorts and a T-shirt the previous day. But, March is finally upon us and the most important part of the month is the NCAA tournament.
The tournament has such a fitting name of “March Madness.” College basketball playoffs are some of the most exciting sports to view. The thrill of a massive tournament with single game elimination with only one winner and it's for the majority of March. Regular NBA basketball has a best of seven playoff series. think about how different the course of the NBA would be completely different if games were decided with one game instead of 7? The 1998 Bulls would never have finished that 3 peat as they lost to the Jazz in game one 88 to 85. The whole sculpture of the game would change.
College hoops is also so interesting because there are only 5 guys on a team on the court. It doesn't matter how good the other five are, anybody can get hot and make it feel like the hoop is as big as a lake. Rankings do not matter in the month of March. Now with all the hype built up around the tournament how does it look this year? Well good as always there are the usual teams you see in the top spots like number one seed Gonzaga. The Bulldogs have been in the NCAA tournament for 22 straight years. Although they have only made it to the big game twice and lost both times once in 2017 to the tar heels and most recently in the last big game where they lost to Baylor. Although 22 years of making the tournament is impressive it's not as impressive as The Kansas Jayhawks making the tournament 31 years straight which is the longest active streak. The tournament does not start until the 13th but there is still plenty of excitement to go around. Another profound basketball program.
Duke entered its 41st under head coach Mike Krzyzewski. Mike has been the blue devils coach since the 1980 and has hoisted 5 NCAA championship banners at Duke. This Saturday coach K had his final home game before retirement. He had announced his plan to retire last June and many knew this would be his last game. With it being a home game against rivals University of North Carolina tickets were not easy2 to get a hold of with some paying upwards to $10,000. With the big stage all set…. THEY LOST. Duke really blew it. This was so unexpected and incredibly hilarious it still has me laughing even a couple days later.
With the tournament up and coming a lot of people will be trying to predict the winner of the big tournament. There are the usual candidates: the big schools like Kentucky, Auburn, Duke, Kansas, Baylor, and Gonzaga. Although I have my own thoughts. I predict that The Ohio State university will win it all. Although they are only ranked 23rd as we established before, rankings mean NOTHING in this tournament. The Buckeyes have the perfect Cinderella story. The year before they heartbreakingly lost in the first round to a small school called Oral Roberts. I remember that day well as I left school early to catch the game at my house. This loss broke my heart. I remember being upset, frantically Googling where Oral Roberts even is located at. Now with a plot for revenge and another shot at the big title Ohio State is ready to ball out this season.
Clearly, Madness is not even the proper word to describe what this tournament means to many and the emotions it evokes. I would propose March Mayhem for a more fitting name.