It’s that time of year again- let the Madness begin!
Every year, the road to college basketball madness begins the same way — not with a tip-off, but with a television show. On Selection Sunday, the field of 68 teams is revealed. Those 68 teams are selected and seeded into a single-elimination bracket. The 68 teams are made up of 37 at-large teams and 31 automatic qualifiers who earned their spot by winning their conference tournament. March Madness rewards teams peaking in March—not teams that dominated in January.
Selection Sunday is the beginning of the most unpredictable event in sports — a tournament where blue bloods can fall, unknown programs become Cinderellas overnight, and each game carries the weight of a season. The moment the bracket was announced, the madness had already begun.
Cinderella Story
The magic of March Madness isn’t the blue bloods winning early rounds. It’s the Cinderella story. The madness, the chaos, the busted brackets when a small school knocks out a big program is the moment Cinderella arrives to the big dance. I love a good Cinderella story, unless it involves the University of Tennessee. The question isn’t if there will be a Cinderella — it’s which team will ruin brackets and give us a Cinderella story this year.
Mid-Majors
Looks like the Selection Committee gave the mid-majors a little more respect this year. If you are not sure what a ‘mid-major’ is, let me break it down. A mid-major school is a Division I college basketball program that plays in a conference outside of the traditional “Power 5” (ACC, Big Ten, Big 12, SEC, and Big East) conferences. These schools usually have lower budgets, smaller athletic departments, and typically receive only one bid to the NCAA tournament, these are the schools that become “Cinderella”.
This year’s field of 68 included four additional at-large bids for mid-majors. One more than last year. Three teams from the West Coast (WCC): Gonzaga, Saint Mary’s, Santa Clara. Two teams from the Atlantic 10 (A-10): VCU and Saint Louis and two teams from the Mid-America (MAC): Akron and Miami (Ohio).
Miami (Ohio) is the first Division I men’s basketball team to finish the regular season without a loss since 2021- pretty impressive! But they were upset 87-83 by #8 seed UMass in the quarterfinals of the Mid-American Conference tournament. The RedHawks’ tournament bid drew national attention as their wins piled up; however, they played zero Quadrant 1 games, (teams ranked 1 – 30). They also didn’t win their conference tournament and did not make the MAC final. Their strength of schedule entered Sunday ranked 339th out of 365 with their non-conference strength of schedule ranked at 363- that’s third from the bottom! But they are headed to Dayton to play SMU in a First Four matchup to see who will face the #6 seed University of Tennessee on Friday.
Bracketology
My favorite part of March Madness is how everyone instantly becomes a bracketologist, except for my dad, Mike St.Clair- he is a real expert. Suddenly, everyone filling out a bracket has watched every team and knows every player stat, injury report, and is an expert analyst. I question why some of these bracketologists are not on Power 5 payrolls for scouting and consulting analyst. Some of us only have time to keep up with our teams and get to see a big game out of conference.
The insane odds of picking a perfect bracket is 1 in 9.2 quintillion. Basically, it’s never going to happen. The truth about March Madness is simple: the bracket is less about seeding and more about matchups, guard play, and who gets hot at the right time. And somewhere in an office pool, someone who picked teams based on mascots, school colors, or vacation destinations will be sitting in first place by Monday.
Play-in games start Tuesday and Wednesday and brackets are due Thursday by noon EST. The Championship game will be played April 6th in Indianapolis. Let the Madness begin!
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