It's March; Are You Mad Yet?

If you are not a fan of National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Basketball, the question may not resonate. But if you are a denizen of CBC Sports, and you are familiar with the work of announcers Clark Kellogg, Jim Nance, Dick Enberg, Jay Bilas, Gus Johnson, Tim Brando, Len Elmore, and Bill Raftery, to name a few, more than likely you know the deal. These are several of the leading voices of the Men’s NCAA Basketball Tournament, commonly known as March Madness, or The Big Dance.

The Tournament, which plays out over three weekends, kicked off last Thursday, and ends Monday after next. It features sixty-five teams, sixty-four games, and one winner. The format is Single-Elimination; losers go home! A panel of “experts” spends a weekend, sequestered, seeding thirty-four Conference Tournament Champions, and twenty-nine at-large entries. The final two teams meet in a play-in game, played at The University of Dayton, to determine the sixty-fourth seed. The winner earns the distinction of facing the overall Number one seed. This year, that formula resulted in a game between Morehead State University, and the University of Louisville, two schools from the State of Kentucky.

Teams are placed in four Regions (East, West, Midwest, and South), and seeded one through sixteen in each Region. The tournament typically creates a number of much-anticipated pairings, and often unpredictable outcomes, complete with buzzer beaters, multiple overtime games, and of course, blow-outs. The Tournament established in 1939 moved to a sixty-four team format in 1985, and added the play-in game in 2001. The one Natural Law that has prevailed since the inception of the sixty-four team format is, no number sixteen seed has ever defeated a number one seed.

There are some people who seek attention by sharing their unconventional views and others who are simply fond of going against the odds, by routinely predicting it will happen one day. It will not! At least it will not unless some unfathomable circumstance befalls a number one seed just before the game. The variation in talent is simply too great to imagine the sixty-fourth seed defeating the number one overall seed, or even the sixty-first seed defeating the number four seed, overall, especially on a neutral court. Ever!

The first weekend of the tournament is considered one of the most thrilling times in all of sports. Sixty-four teams gathered across eight sites (Dayton, Kansas City, Boise, Minneapolis, Philadelphia, Greensboro, Miami, and Portland, this year) and started down the Road to the Final Four, which this year will be held in Detroit, at Ford Field, home of the Detroit Lions. Yes, that is a football stadium. But if you understand everything up to this point, you know the deal. Increasingly, that is how NCAA Tournament Championship basketball is done. It’s all about the Benjamins, as 71,000 seats will be for sale…but that is an entire story unto itself; another day perhaps.

While there are always upsets, this year’s first two rounds produced no results that would be considered truly stunning. All four number one seeds, Louisville, Pittsburgh, North Carolina, and Connecticut, advanced, winning the two games needed to get to The Sweet 16. But in addition, so did all four number two seeds, all four number three seeds, and two number four seeds. Of the two teams not seeded in the top sixteen, one was a number five (Top 20), and the other Arizona, was seeded twelfth, the only genuine outlier to survive the first weekend. At this point, that “panel of experts” is looking pretty smart.

Last year was the first time since seeding began that all four number one seeds advanced to the Final Four. I expect the increased level of competition to result in the elimination of at least one top seed this weekend. The four sites for the Sweet 16 are Indianapolis, Boston, Memphis, and Glendale, Arizona.

If the games hold to form, a number of scintillating match-ups await. While it is unlikely, if the top eight seeds win Thursday and Friday, then, on Saturday and Sunday, fans would see Michigan State-Louisville, Duke-Pittsburgh, Oklahoma-North Carolina, and Memphis-Connecticut. Nothing like that has ever happened, of course. Don’t expect it this weekend.

The Tournament attracts interest from a wide variety of people. This year, President Barack Obama, acting in his newly created capacity of Hoopster-in-Chief, revealed his personal bracket to the Nation. Bracketolgy is one of the most popular diversions generated by the Tournament. The phenomenon is 100% art, zero science. It is usually a function of a fan scouring the sixty-four team bracket and devising a creative way for the team he or she likes best to advance as far a possible. Sometimes, money is as stake. In the case of the Hoopster-in-Chief…I hope not!

On Monday, April 6th, sometime around midnight, the “Madness” will culminate. With it, the end of the sixty-fourth game, the elimination of penultimate combatant, and the elevation of the last team standing. The squad and coaching staff will, as tradition dictates, bask in the glow of a triumphant season, while exuberantly murdering the words to “One Shining Moment.”

I will not pretend to have approached the NCAA Tournament will any degree of objectivity. Though I have no bracket on the line, and no money wagered, I do have a passionate and vested interest. I am a Tar Heel born, and a Tar Heel Bred. “It’s March, and I’m Mad.” So, if you did not know before, GO HEELS!

I’m done; holla back!

Read my blog anytime by clicking the link: http://thesphinxofcharlotte.blogspot.com/. A new post is published each Wednesday.

For more detailed information on a variety of aspects relating to this post, consult the links below:

http://awfulannouncing.blogspot.com/2009/03/breaking-cbs-releases-announcer.html

http://www.collegehoopsnet.com/ncaa-tournament-cbs-announcers-41921

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/mayhem/brackets/viewable_men

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_NCAA_Men's_Division_I_Basketball_Tournament

http://www.ncaa.com/

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&q=2009+Ncaa+basketball+tournament+sites&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=abvJSZLyPJDCtweKvYSlAw&sa=X&oi=news_group&resnum=4&ct=title

http://college-basketball.suite101.com/article.cfm/2009_ncaa_mens_basketball_tournament_schedule

http://www.point-spreads.com/college-basketball/031609-2009-ncaa-basketball-tournament-odds.html

http://www.businesswire.com/portal/site/home/permalink/?ndmViewId=news_view&newsId=20090316005301&newsLang=en

http://virginiadem.wordpress.com/2009/03/18/barack-obamas-2009-ncaa-basketball-tournament-picks/