Rebuilding Rob

This week the men’s and women’s NCAA College Basketball tournament – also known as March Madness – begins. In Las Vegas, it is the busiest time of year for the sports books. More people bet on the NCAA tournament than on any other sporting event. Even if you’re not a fan of college basketball, or any sports for that matter, the tournaments make for a fun few weeks. Here’s a few reasons why:

Anybody can play!

Go on print off a March Madness bracket. The Athletic has probably the cleanest bracket if you want one to simply fill out and print off. ESPN has what is, in my opinion, the best online bracket challenge. I just entered a challenge group with my co-workers.

You an pick you winners ANY way you want. Go by their tournament seedings. Use the “bracketology” expert insight. Check out the Las Vegas’ favorites. Pick your favorite teams. Choose the teams that has the best colors, nicknames or logos. Automatically choose all of the underdogs! Use any or all of these options because…

No one has a damn clue what’s going to happen.

College basketball is big business. But for all the “expert analysis and insight” that go into the NCAA Tournaments, ANYTHING can happen. March Madness is a “one and done” tournament. Win and advance. Lose and go home. In the NCAA tournament, the best team doesn’t always win.

There has never been a documented case of anyone successfully picking all 63 winners of an NCAA tournament. In fact, the math puts the odds at doing so as 1 in 9.2 quintillion. That’s 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808. This NCAA.com article outs those number into a more realistic perspective.

Sometimes David beats Goliath

Why can’t the Roast Beef State University Fight Insurance Salesman beat the Indiana Hoosiers? It has happened before. Upsets happen every year and these are often the most interesting stories to come out of the tournament. All a team has to do is play well enough all season and/or win their conference tournament and they get invite to “the big dance”. For most teams, their Cinderella only consists of one moment of greatness. But every now and then, a team gets hot at the right moment and makes a highly improbably run through the tournament. Athlon has great article on the 10 biggest Cinderella stories Men’s tournament history.

The game can turn in a matter of seconds

As great as the underdog stories, the last-second buzzer-beating finishes are equally exciting. If the game is close, sometimes all it takes a matter of seconds to to turn your teams’ fortunes. Lightning does strike during March Madness. Sometimes fans’ prayers do get answered. Teams who are seconds away from sealing their victory have felt the floor give way underneath them; igniting one- half of the crowd and suddenly silencing the other.

And don’t forget the ladies

I must admit that I don’t follow women’s basketball anywhere near as much as I do the men’s; which is to say not at all. However, there are at least two big stories even the causal sports fan may want to follow: The women’s tournament follows the same 68 team format (the “first four” and the 64 team tournament follows).

The South Carolina Gamecocks are undefeated this season and the odds-on favorite to win the championship. In fact, the Gamecocks are 103-3 over the past three seasons! Expectations for the Gamecocks are high as they will be chasing history in the tournament.

The story that has transcended women’s sports this season is that of Iowa’s Caitlin Clark, who set the all-time scoring record for Women’s (and Men’s) college basketball this season. Hawkeyes games have been getting prime time and national coverage. The numbers don’t lie as attendance goes up when Iowa comes to town. Will Caitlin Clark become the WNBA’s first superstar to transcend the game, a la Michael Jordan and LeBron James?

For the record, I’ve got Iowa beating South Carolina in the finals.

Thanks for stopping by Rebuilding Rob. Be sure to like, comment and subscribe to my blog below. It’s greatly appreciated! Also, feel free to follow me on social media as well! Check out my most recent posts as well as some earlier, related posts:

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• A Death in the Family (And My Disposable Income): My Life in Comics
• The Supporting Cast: Navigating the Eras of Male Friendship
• Life is What Happens: A Look Back at My Non-Existent 2025 Vision
• The Moment I Walked Inside a Hallmark Movie

The article “Madness, I say!” first appeared on Rebuilding Rob.