March is a crazy time when it comes to basketball. It especially gets chaotic when talking about college basketball. March Madness is the best tournament in college basketball and one of the best tournaments overall in the world. The tournament is so unpredictable that it has been turned into a game to try and make all of the right selections. It is held all over America playing in big stadiums with the final four being held in the Alamodome in San Antonio.
Nobody has ever made all of the right picks when filling out their brackets. There are seven rounds with 68 different teams competing. It’s a single elimination style tournament where there are many mid to major division one basketball teams. The odds of creating a perfect bracket are 1 in 147,573,952,589,676,412,928. There are 60 to 100 million brackets submitted every year. Due to how slim the odds are there is a million-dollar prize for whoever can succeed.
Although many of the high-level schools are always in the tournament, there are many teams who don’t get an easy path to making it to the tournament and playing on that big of a stage. There are 31 automatic qualifiers that are selected by winning their conference and 37 at large bids selected by a crew of committees. Many smaller programs dream of playing on a stage that big to make a name for the players themselves and for the program.
For example, Oakland University made national headlines after beating Kentucky which was favored by many to beat Oakland. They had players make big names for themselves which otherwise without the tournament wouldn’t have the name they have today. Some went to the G League and others got opportunities to play at bigger colleges. The university also became very well known after their performance.
Although the seeds are not decided yet there are many early predictions as to who will make it far and win the tournament. Some of the favorites are Duke, Auburn, Houston, and Tennessee. They’re some of the top teams in college basketball right now with elite-level talent within the players and coaching staff. In traditional March Madness style, some of the elite-level teams will lose in the first few rounds to a very low-seeded and unknown team.
I personally am in favor of Michigan State winning it all or Duke. I think Michigan State has really been playing to its true potential within the last few games when seeing the connection in the team chemistry. Although they don’t have the best talent and players in all of college basketball they have an elite coach. Tom Izzo, who just secured his 730th win, also has eight final four appearances in the tournament. Duke, a front-runner, has a better team in the roster aspect. They landed one of the top high school players and projected number one NBA draft pick Cooper Flagg. They also have junior Tyrese Proctor who adds tremendously to the team as well. They do not have the coaching aspect in the same way though, head coach John Scheyer is going into his third season as head coach. Due to a lack of experience, some could doubt the team because of that. Overall the tournament is highly unpredictable and anybody could come out with the win.
