The Madness of March

By all stretches of the imagination, this year's March Madness has not played out how anyone could have fathomed. If you can seriously say that you predicted #15 seed Florida Gulf Coast University, a team that didn't join Division 1 Basketball until 2007, to make it to the sweet sixteen, you're lying. And if you say you could have predicted the Wichita State Shockers to reach the Final Four in Atlanta, just stop right there. 

On Selection Sunday everyone was excited to be the one with the "perfect bracket"; atleast I know I was. All of my friends and I chose the bracket we were sure was going to win it all right after they came out on the internet. As usual, this optimism became a fantasy immediately after the games began that Thursday.

It's literally mayhem as that dude always says in those Allstate Insurance commercials. Florida Gulf Coast knocked off Georgetown to start it all off, which 1% of people on ESPN predicted to happen. And I'm assuming that 1% of people is the student body that attends Florida Gulf Coast University. Then, Gonzaga, a #1 seed goes down in the second round to a Wichita State team that most people thought would lose to Pittsburgh in the first round including myself. To round it all out, New Mexico, a team that many thought would finally make a tournament run was beaten by a Harvard team with no career tournament wins, except for their final exam grades. 

Even though they severely damaged my chance at winning money to spend freely at college this semester, the Wichita State Shockers are a great story because of the way they have knocked off several top tier teams and have made a name for the Mid-Majors. The Dukes and Indianas of the world will get the press and earn more money but these Mid-Major teams are just as good. That's what makes March such a hectic month and one that's impossible to predict. I know in Connecticut I never get the chance to watch Wichita State play coming out of Kansas. 

However depressed we may be over our busted bracket and lost money, we should not dwell on the past, although I'm still heartbreaken that my Michigan State Spartans were embarrassed by Duke. It's almost as if there's a switch that is turned on in the month of March by a higher power that allows the teams nobody has heard of such as Florida Gulf Coast the chance to beat a basketball superpower in Georgetown. I guarantee if Harvard played New Mexico in December, New Mexico would have won by double digits, but in March the fairy dust is on the Cinderella's side. To look at the glass half full, this chaos shouldn't cause us stress, but rather we should embrace the fantasies that March consistently turns into realities.