March Madness

March Madness

A True Underdog Story

By Andy Brown and Frank Panzer

March Madness or the NCAA Men’s division 1 basketball tournament is a single elimination tournament that is held each year at the end of the basketball season in March where 68 teams have one common goal. That goal is to win a national championship. There is two ways to get into this tournament. Winning your conference tournament automatically gets you a bid into the tournament regardless of your record. These bids take up 32 spots and the remaining 36 spots are called “at large bids” that are selected by the NCAA selection committee.

Photo taken by Frank Panzer

Getting an at large bid and tournament seeding is based on several factors. Some of these include team rankings, win-loss records, and strength of schedule. Getting into this tournament is what every team aims for. The beauty of the NCAA Men’s division 1 basketball tournament is that a team who doesn’t have a strong strength of schedule or a good record can still get in by winning there conference. Two of these teams who are often called “underdogs” are in the final four out of 68 teams in this year’s March Madness tournament. VCU and Butler University will be playing each other in the final four and are two of the biggest underdogs in this tournament. There is four regions that consist of 16 teams each and Butler is an 8 seed and VCU an 11 seed. This is a very rare thing to happen considering they had to go through some of the toughest teams in the country to get to the final four.

I wanted to find out some of the teams people around Bemidji picked to win it all, so I went to the local bar during one of the games and asked Dennis Harsch who he picked to win the NCAA Men’s basketball tournament. He said” I picked Duke and they only made it about half way. Shows you how much I know about college basketball. The underdog teams like Butler, VCU, Richmond, and Morehead State kill your bracket. You just don’t see them coming and those teams are dangerous ones.” I also asked him which do you like more the March Madness tournament or the MLB playoffs. Dennis responded by saying “without a doubt the March Madness tournament. You get more quality of games in the basketball tournament and a lot more upsets. These college kids go out and play their hearts out.”

UCLA, who has won 11 national titles, is at the top of the list for universities winning this tournament. University of Kentucky is second with 7 national titles, and Indiana University and University of North Carolina round out the top 3 with 5 national titles. According to ESPN.com only two out of the 5.9 million people playing the bracket challenge on ESPN picked the correct final four teams out of 68. This is the main reason why they call it March Madness. You never know who is going to win and lose. Only a 192 people out of the 5.9 million picked VCU and Butler to meet in the final four. This just goes to show how big of underdogs these two teams are. 

Photo taken by Frank Panzer- picture of final four teams left in 2011 tournament.

President Obama even joined in on the fun of filling out a bracket since he is such a huge sports fan and his bracket is officially busted with none of his teams reaching the final four. President Obama picked all # 1 seeds to reach the final four. The top seed in the final four is a # 3 seed.  He predicted Butler to win only one game and VCU to be eliminated in the first round.  

I asked Garth Russell who is a basketball fan from Bemidji how his bracket turned out and he said” terrible. This year was full of upsets and no one saw any of them coming. I even watched ESPN to see what the experts were saying who to pick and still managed to have busted bracket. I love March Madness though. This is what it’s all about. This is my favorite time of year I love college basketball.” Butler University ended up making it to the national championship game beating VCU but eventually lost to national favorite University of Connecticut. It was the second time in two years Butler made it to the final game and lost. 

Word Count: 751