The most exciting time of the year for not only college basketball fans but sports fans in general has finally come to an end as we experienced one of the most exciting endings to an NCAA tournament in quite some time.

March Madness is what they call it, and for what had been a mediocre season of college basketball was made up for with a stellar ending to the national champion deciding NCAA tournament.
What seems to make the tournament more interesting and worth watching is not only the jaw dropping upsets or the unpredictable finishes to games but it is the opportunity to predict the outcome of the tournament by deciding the winner of each game resulting in your own personal “bracket”. The goal is a perfect bracket and of those who make their own brackets, half don’t even make it past the first day of what totals out to be an 11 day tournament.

It’s not just the pride of claiming superior basketball knowledge but it is the possibility of claiming the prize that seems to grow each and every year. The prize of a perfect bracket is around $100,000.
64 teams participate, 63 games played to decide one winner. Millions of brackets are submitted yet most years there’s not one perfect bracket. Year after year more than 99% can’t even predict the first round of games.

Out of millions of brackets entered, you would think that someone would guess 32 games correctly but this year not one person was capable of doing so. Just a 32 question exam and not one perfect score from millions of test takers. It is very hard to believe but that’s just the madness and frustration of it all.
Though when looking past and ignoring all the chaos of predicting a perfect bracket, the typical sports fan will find themselves witnessing a chaotic national basketball tournament.

The tournament consists of four regions, 16 teams in each region all seeded one through 16. There is the first round leading to the round of 32, then the sweet sixteen, elite eight, and final four. The national championship always lands on a Monday.

One of the favorites to win this year’s NCAA tournament was Michigan State who was shockingly knocked out in the first round by 15-seed Middle Tennessee State which was arguably the biggest upset in tournament history destroying so many brackets.

Another significant upset also took place in the first round as 12-seed Yale knocked off 5-seed Baylor giving Yale their first ever tournament win in school history.

Number one overall seed in the entire tournament Kansas was knocked off by Villanova in the elite eight. Number one seeds Oregon and Virginia were also eliminated in the elite eight cutting their final four dreams short.

Every year there is always a Cinderella team that seems to make a deep magical run in the tournament. This year’s Cinderella team was Syracuse, a talented team who had an underachieving regular season which resulted in many saying they didn’t belong in the tournament but coach Jim Boeheim had different plans. With upset wins over Dayton, Gonzaga and number one seed Virginia, the Orangemen made it all the way to the final four.

The final four consisted of 10-seed Syracuse, 2-seed Oklahoma, 2-seed Villanova and the favorites to win 1-seed North Carolina. Villanova dismantled Oklahoma and North Carolina put an end to Syracuse’s great tournament run.

The championship game was a showdown between two legendary programs, teams and coaches. Arguably the most exciting championship game in the past twenty years ending in 30-foot buzzer beater to win the game by Villanova’s Kris Jenkins. Villanova won their first national championship in 31 years.
Whether you choose to participate in the competition to fulfill perfect bracket hopes or sit back and enjoy the madness of the tournament, March Madness is without a doubt one of the most fun and exciting times in all of sports throughout the year.