March Madness: Reporter shoots for bracket upsets
March Madness is upon us, and that means it is time for all of us to stress over constructing the right tournament bracket.
One thing that people appreciate March Madness is that it shines a spotlight on many players that we will most likely never hear about again in the world of sports. We love to see underdogs that come out of nowhere to grab our attention with their amazing play.
Even though this is all great and makes us feel good for the teams and players, we cannot forget the best part about March Madness: bragging to our friends about how smart we are for picking (insert random small school) to upset (insert any big school powerhouse).
The hardest part about making your selections is picking the upset games because there are always those small schools that come out of nowhere to capture the hearts of America by going on a miracle tournament run. The upset games, however, are the reason why March Madness really is “madness.”
The beauty of March Madness lies in the reality that any team, even a mediocre one, can beat any other team, even a powerhouse, in any given game as long as they can outplay them for one 40-minute stretch of basketball.
Even though I know my bracket will be completely ruined after the first day of tournament games and I will be kicking myself for overthinking all of my picks, it is always fun to fill out a bracket and feel like a genius for a little bit before the games actually start. You can see a larger version of my bracket by clicking on the image below.
For someone like myself who loves upsets, I will admit that I sold out and picked Gonzaga, the highest ranked team in the nation, to win it all. I have always really admired Gonzaga’s basketball program because they are always a really good team that plays together with players that nobody has heard of.
I am not one of those people who just picks as many upsets as possible at the risk of the accuracy of their bracket so that they can say, “I definitely saw that one coming!” Upsets are definitely great, but above all I just want my bracket to be as accurate as possible.
However, I still picked several big upsets throughout the tournament.
My most prized upset pick is the 4th seeded Butler Bulldogs, who I picked to go all the way to the national championship game and lose to Gonzaga. Anyone who follows the tournament closely each year knows that Butler has basically become an upset-legend at this point and would definitely be in the Upset-Team Hall of Fame, if there ever was one.
Butler first rose to prominence when they came out of nowhere in 2010 and came one buzzer-beating shot short of knocking off the notorious Duke Blue Devils in the National Championship game. The crazy thing about Butler is that they continue to be a very good team and make the tournament every year (including making it to the championship game in 2011) despite losing players, including their coach in 2013 to the NBA.
Another notable upset I have is the 6th seeded SMU Mustangs from Dallas knocking off Duke to reach the Elite 8. I will admit part of the reason I picked SMU to make it this far is because they are a small college not too far from us, but I also did not ignore how good SMU has been this year. SMU is 2-2 against teams in the top 25 in the nation, which shows that they have proven they can play with the big dogs.
Now it is time for me to sit back and pat myself on the back for having such a genius bracket. That is, until the tournament starts and my bracket is completely shattered and I am kicking myself for not seeing the outcome of each game ahead of time.
