March Madness and Sadness
It's the greatest time of the year again! That's right , it's the MARCH MADNESS SEASON. And for many Purdue or Arizona lovers it has turned into March SADNESS. In case you've been under a rock for the last couple of weeks. Let's get caught up on the powerhouses, the surprises, and more importantly the cinderellas!
Like with any tournament, they can't all be ground breaking upsets. Sometimes the best teams win. . . and in dominating fashion. 1 Seeded Alabama and 1 Seeded Houston have been on their own respective warpaths. 1 Alabama blowing out 16 Texas A&M CC and 8 Maryland, and 1 Houston shutting down opposing offenses of 16 NKU and 8 Auburn, holding each to under 65 points. 2 Texas has been on an impressive but not surprising run. Led by an interim head coach and playing the best basketball of their season at the right time.And a tournament mainstay 2 UCLA has quietly secured their spot in the Sweet 16 as well.
Some more surprising runs of the tournament have come from the most unusual of places. For starters though ranked as a higher seed number 4 Tennessee had an eye opening win vs a much highly favored 5 Duke. 3 Kansas State is also enjoying their trip back to the sweet 16 for the first time in 5 years. After a disappointing regular season finishing in the bottom among the Big 12 conference, the Wildcats started to defy all odds. They have since gone on to edge out another highly ranked wildcats in the number 6 Kentucky to knock them out of the tournament early for the 4th year in a row. And finally one of the more surprising turns of events is the early exit of another Blue-blooded staple, the 1 Kansas Jayhawks. The reigning national champions suffered an unexpected defeat at the Hands of 8 Arkansas Razorbacks who are looking for the return to the sweet 16 for the third year in a row.
And finally the best part of March Madness. . .The Upsets! This tournament has been nothing short of Maddening. With probably the greatest upset, for only the second time in history, number 16th seeded FDU (Frederick Dickinson University) shocked the world when they beat a very sure lock for a final four number 1 seeded Purdue. As if beating a 1 seed wasn't enough, the reason that this is so special is because FDU wasn't even supposed to be in that game. In fact they weren't supposed to be in the tournament at all. The easiest way to make the conference tournament bid is to win your conference championship. And for the other 31 teams this was the case. However FDU lost their NEC tournament to MErrimeick. So why hasn't the biggest upset gone to the Merrimack Warriors? In a cruel twist of fate, for Merrimack to make the jump to a division 1 school from their previous division 2 standings they lose 1 year of eligibility. Luckily for FDU this left the spot into the play-in tournament wide open. FDU handily defeated Texas Southern to become the 68th of 68th team to make it in the tournament. Dead Last. Where else but March Madness can a team ranked as low as you can get, with an under point margin which had previously never been heard off before (32.5) end up with their names edged in history.
So as we look onwards who knows where this tournament will go. All we know is that this year has been nothing short of madness. Yet again there will be no perfect brackets. Yet again there are dominant 1 seeds and shocking 15 and 16 seeds. And yet again there will be a surplus of sad UK fans thinking that next year is our year. . . but we all know it's not.
