Are you feeling the madness yet? If you didn’t know the March Madness tournament is about to get going starting March 15th until April 2nd, and on April 2nd a National Champion will be decided. The March Madness tournament or the “Big Dance” was created back in 1939 when the NCAA was known as the NABC. Then it slightly changed in 1950 when the NCAA started giving at-large birth’s, which is chosen by the NCAA committee. Also, in 1984 a member of the NCAA named Bob Walsh created the March Madness celebration and ever since then all number 1 seeds have never lost in the first round to a 16 seed and the record for that since 1984 is 108-0.

Next, in this tournament they specially designed it so then all the match-ups in the first round equal up to 17, then in the following rounds there is no exact number because you never know which team will win. This is why the call it March Madness because you never know who will upset who. Another interesting fact you might not know is that every weekend during this tournament the number of teams is decreased by three fourths (Round of 64, “Sweet Sixteen”, Final Four.) Finally, where the teams play is never chosen right before the tournament they are preselected so that no team get a higher advantage then the other teams.

But if you can’t already tell, this Madness is quickly evolving and quickly getting more popular. Anyone could just go onto a sports website and find March Madness somewhere on the cover of it. They have also learned how to make money or turn these match’s into a competition by letting people make there own brackets which is a printable layout of all the match-ups and have people guess who they believe will win. They also make money on these games by making bets with other fans or other people about the winners of that particular game. But some questions that I still have for the NCAA committee is how do they chose the Final Four locations or National Championships’ location? How do they decide on the at-large births? Why do they play four extra games to see who makes it to the tournament why not just pick it there? Finally, how do you guys decide if one team with a better record gets a lower seed then a team with a lower record gets a better seed. To conclude, did you know that all number 1 seeds have only made it once to the Final Four at the same time out of 72 years (this year is the 73rd.) Do you feel the Madness now?

~Eric Dishnica