I sat in a room Sunday night watching the Oregon versus Rhode Island game. Oregon is a three seed, while Rhode Island is an 11 seed. As the whole room cheered for Oregon and yelled comments such as, “don’t ruin my bracket, Oregon,” I sat in irritation. Even though Oregon was the popular pick to make the sweet sixteen, Rhode Island was the Cinderella story. The underdog. The team people should’ve been rooting for.
I filled out a bracket. Not because I wanted to, but because I was asked to by my friends and family. Filling out brackets can be fun, but it is not what makes March Madness so special. Cinderella stories make March special. Fifteen-seeded Middle Tennessee State upsetting two-seeded Michigan State was madness. Fifteen-seeded Florida Gulf Coast making it to the sweet sixteen was madness. You picking three-seeded Oregon to beat 11-seeded Rhode Island is not madness.
If you do it the right way, brackets can be a great addition to the uniqueness of March. They become detrimental to March when all people care about is their bracket.
For example, look at the Duke versus South Carolina game. Duke is arguably the most hated team in college basketball. If Duke and South Carolina played in the regular season, the entire nation would be rooting for the Gamecocks. However, with Duke being a popular final four pick, everyone became Duke fans.
What people forgot when they were cheering for Duke is the story behind South Carolina’s head coach Frank Martin. He grew up in a tough Miami neighborhood without a father. While pursuing a career in coaching, he was forced to take on many part-time jobs, such as a bouncer at a nightclub, to pay the bills. His first coaching job was an assistant coach at a high school. Now he just beat Duke, but people do not realize that because all they are concerned with is their brackets.
I’m not telling you to stop filling out brackets. I will probably fill out a bracket every year for the rest of my life. But to keep the name “March Madness” going, people need to want the madness to happen. If two one-seeded teams are playing in the final four and you picked one of them to win the championship, then go ahead and cheer for them to win. But when a team full of players who were told they weren’t good enough to play at Oregon have a chance to beat Oregon, you should forget about your bracket and watch the madness unfold.
When people start cheering for the favorite team to win every game, just because they picked them to win in their bracket, it’s no longer March madness. It’s just March.
