With the 2021 Final Four now set in stone, I decided to dedicate this post to the sports phenomenon known as March Madness. I hope you enjoy reading this post.
What is March Madness?
“March Madness” (aka “The Big Dance”) is the name for the NCAA’s annual men’s college basketball tournament. Every single March/April, 68 collegiate basketball teams compete for a chance to win the NCAA national championship in men’s basketball. This tournament takes place over three straight weekends from mid-March to early-April. So, sports fans get no-stop action during what would otherwise be a dull time in the sports world. Consequently, sports fans everywhere rejoice every Spring when March Madness rolls around.
What has made March Madness so iconic? Well, a lot of things. Whether it is the thrilling buzzer-beaters, the shocking upsets, or the unforgettable cinderella stories, what makes March Madness truly special is the raw emotion on display. In this three-week span, these college basketball players leave everything on the court to bring glory their schools/fan bases. The rest of this post will discuss the history, traditions, and notable moments of March Madness.
General History of March Madness
The NCAA College Basketball tournament dates back all the way to 1939—when Oregon defeated Ohio State 46-33. In its 80+ year history, March Madness has changed quite drastically. What once was a small-scale college basketball tournament has now become a nation-wide phenomenon. In fact, most of the NCAA’s annual revenue now comes from March Madness. The NCAA typically earns over $800 million in revenue from March Madness television/marketing deals alone (about 75% of its annual revenue). This lucrative event is all made possible by the millions of college basketball fans who have passionately watched March Madness over the years.
March Madness has gradually expanded over the years to get the current 68-team format that we currently have. In the 1930s and 40s, only eight teams received invitations to play. Then, the tournament grew to 16 teams in 1951, doubled to 32 in 1975 and expanded to its current size of 64 teams in 1985. I doubt that the tournament will grow any larger in the future, but it would be fun to think about a 128 team college basketball tournament.
In the current format, a total of 67 games (four play-ins games plus 63 tournament games) get played to crown the next college basketball national champion.
The next section of this post will detail some of the famed traditions of March Madness.
Traditions of March Madness
Selection Sunday
On the Sunday before March Madness, the ten-member selection committee for March Madness publicly releases its seeding for the bracket. The television channel CBS holds a live broadcast to announce the entire bracket’s seeding. During the broadcast, camera crews across the country capture teams’ live reaction to their seeding/selection in the tournament.
Every year, several teams barely miss out on making the tournament. Selection Sunday always seems to piss off several fanbases when the committee doesn’t select their team. Personally, I experienced this pure rage during my freshman year of college.
In March 2019, I was invited to attend my school’s (i.e. TCU) Selection Sunday watch party. TCU’s men’s basketball team, coaching staff, and athletic department stuff tensely waited to see our team get selected for March Madness. Sure, TCU was projected as “bubble team” in 2019. However, most basketball analysts projected that TCU would make it in. I actually had a reporter ask me if I thought that TCU would get in. My reply was pretty cocky. I said that we had a resume as good as anyone’s that year and that we would shock the some people in the tournament. Unfortunately, my words came back to haunt. TCU didn’t get selected. You couldn’t here a pin drop at the TCU Selection Sunday watch party. Everyone in attendance became super disappointed. I was so angry that I boycotted making my annual March Madness bracket. 2019 was the first year that I hadn’t made a March Madness bracket since I started making them in the fifth grade.
Brackets
Probably the best March Madness tradition is the quest for the perfect bracket. Americans of all ages and backgrounds fill out around 70 million total brackets for March Madness. People make brackets for all sorts of reasons: from bragging rights to winning money and everything in between. What’s more, filling out brackets has become so widespread that even many non-sports fans make brackets.
If you didn’t know already, the odds of picking the perfect bracket are nearly impossible. Given that the average person correctly picks about 2/3 of March Madness games, the odds of a perfect bracket are about 1 in 120 billion. So, the odds aren’t in your favor.
Several years ago, billionaire investing legend/Berkshire Hathaway CEO Warren Buffett instituted the coolest office bracket pool in existence. He has offered a $1 million reward to any Berkshire Hathaway employee who picks the perfect bracket. With your odds being 1 in 120 billion, ol’ Warren Buffett probably won’t lose his money any time soon.
Cutting Down the Nets
Everyone has probably seen this tradition before. At the conclusion of the National Championship game, the victorious team receives the honor of cutting down the basketball nets. Players and coaches alike bask in the glory of climbing up a ladder and using a small pair of scissors up to cut down the nets. This tradition is the culmination of months of hard work, dedication, and preparation.
One Shining Moment
This March Madness tradition is not everyone’s favorite. Some people think of the “One Shining Moment” video is fairly cheesy, while others see it as a staple of the Big Dance.
For those who don’t know, “One Shining Moment” is the official anthem/music video of March Madness. The NCAA started playing the song in 1986 and has played it at the end of every single March Madness since then. Generally, this video montage serves as a recap of the best moments for that year’s March Madness.
To get a real feel for “One Shining Moment”, I included links to the 2019 video:
Notable Moments of March Madness
As the post nears an end, I decided to include several famous moments in March Madness history:
1. Kris Jenkins’s Buzzer-Beater (2016)
In the 2016 championship game, Villanova knocked off basketball blue-blood North Carolina on Kris Jenkins’s stunning buzzer-beating three-pointer. With the score tied, ‘Nova only had 4.7 seconds to hustle down the court the whole court. Villanova guard Ryan Arcidiacono caught the inbound, dribbled past half-court, and tossed the ball to Kris Jenkins. Jenkins took the three-point shot with a defender’s hand in his face and drilled the game-winner. His shot is likely the most memorable March Madness moment of my lifetime.
I remember watching this play live on television. Personally, I wanted UNC to win. So, I was pretty upset that Villanova won. I had no ties to either school, so my reactions makes no sense looking back on it.
2. The first-ever 16 seed upset: UMBC upsets Virginia (2018)
In my senior year of high school, the unthinkable happened. A unknown school named the University of Maryland Baltimore-County (UMBC) became the first #16 seed (in over 130 tries) to defeat a number #1 seed in March Madness. UMBC’s hot three-point shooting stunned the number one overall-seeded Virginia. When the clock hit zero, the UMBC Golden Retrievers made history with their 74-54 victory over Virginia.
3. Survive and Advance: Jimmy V and the NC State Wolfpack (1983)
I have a personal soft spot for this team. My favorite March Madness moment occurred in the 1983 National Championship game. A #9 seeded NC State came into the game as heavy underdogs against #1 seed Houston. Houston was the heavy favorite because their team boasted future NBA hall-of-famers Hakeem Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler. The 1983 Houston Cougars were absolutely stacked. In miraculous fashion, NC State won by a buzzer-beating dunk by big man Lorenzo Charles. Head coach Jim Valvano completed one of the greatest championship runs in March Madness history.
4. Christian Laettner’s Game-Winner (1992)
I am not the biggest Christian Laettner and Duke fan. But, I had to include this moment. Duke matched up with Kentucky in the 1992 Elite Eight. In this overtime battle, Duke was down by 1 point with two-seconds left. Christian Laettner caught a full-court pass from the inbound passer and nailed a turn-around game-winning jumper. Laettner and Duke reasonably went wild after punching their ticket to the Final Four. Two games later, Christian Laettner and Duke won the 1992 national championship.
There are so many other famous moments that I didn’t go over. But, March Madness has displayed so many amazing moments over the decades.
To close, I included my favorite college basketball documentaries from ESPN’s 30 for 30 documentary series. My favorite one from this list is Survive and Advance—it’s about Jim Valvano and NC State’s historic March Madness run in 1983. I enjoyed this documentary so much as a kid that I got a DVD copy of the film for Christmas one year.
–Survive and Advance
–Requiem for the Big East
–I Hate Christian Laettner
–The Fab Five
–One and Not Done