Tag Archives: March madness

March Madness: Cinderella Story or Heavy Favorite?

Last year, #7 seeded UConn won the NCAA March Madness Tournament. Their odds going in the tournament were at 100 to 1. Now the defending champions are on the bubble to even make the tournament. As of February 26th, the Kentucky Wildcats are still undefeated at a school best 28-0 and a heavy favorite to run the table with 7 to 2 odds.The tournament totaled over 181 million viewers across all devices.

Personally, I do not believe that Kentucky will win the tournament unless they lose a game before the “Big Dance” because no team has went undefeated and won the tourney since the 1976 Indiana Hoosiers. And before that was the 1973 and 1972 UCLA Bruins teams. The team with the highest odds after the Cats are Arizona and Wisconsin at 9 to 1. While no number 1 seed has lost to a 16 seed in the first round, last year Duke, was upset in the first round by way of #15 seeded Mercer. Maybe we will see the record for highest combined seeds for a title game broken again, as it was last year with #7 UConn and #8 Kentucky. There are so many scenarios during March Madness we will never know what we will see during the 2015 NCAA Division 1 Men’s Basketball Tournament.

~Cameron

 

March Madness Has Struck

Over the past two years, the NCAA men’s basketball tournament has had many surprising upsets that keep you on your toes every second. Last season, Not a single top seeded team reached the final four. Instead it was filled by VCU, a team that was not expected to even win their first game, Butler who had a surprise run in 2010 and was back again in 2011, Kentucky who was ranked at a four and had to upset two teams to get into the final four, and Connecticut, a team that struggled during the season but won their conference tournament to earn a 3 seed in the tourney. This season (2012) had two 15 seeds knockout out 2 seeds for the first time in NCAA history. Those teams were Lehigh over Duke and Norfolk State over Missouri.The upsets keep stacking on.

This leads me to wonder if a tournament with 68 teams really helps decide what is the best team. Many of the better teams have seemed to be upset by Cinderella’s and teams that only got in because they won their conference tourney. Some conferences don’t have teams that are that good so it seems unfair that they have just as much chance to win it all as a team that has to face harder teams all year long. Teams like that have never actually won but they still have a shot and when it does happen people may argue the unfairness of the tourney. Nonetheless I enjoy watching it every year. It is still an enjoyable bunch of weekends so don’t miss it.

~Andrew Levy