What March Madness Means

Now that the NCAA “March Madness” Tournament is over, and the Kansas Jayhawks have secured the 2022 national title, we are left with nothing to watch on TV for a while (expect maybe golf and baseball). So, why not take a little dive into how the tournament went this year and why March is truly the best time of year for sports fans.

I guess I cannot speak for everyone when I say this, but the excitement I personally feel every year when Selection Sunday is approaching is truly unmatched. The speculation of where teams will be placed and who will be hanging on the edge in those play in-games leaves room for great conversation with coworkers, while perhaps you should be getting work done instead.

It was reported by WalletHub.com that during “March Madness” there are $13.8 billion worth of corporate losses reported due to unproductive workers. I think the term “unproductive” here is a strong word, because if you are anything like me, you are absolutely being “productive” — checking every game score, watching game highlights, scrolling through Twitter to catch anything I could have missed while having to do some actual work and talking about basketball non-stop for roughy 24 hours a day and seven days per week.

There is no other tournament that pairs so many unfamiliar opponents together and allows fans to hate on teams they have never faced, or have rarely faced off with before, for just a night. Well, depending on how the game goes, some fans may even hate on that program for a lifetime. I’m looking at you, Texas Tech.

To recap the tournament I feel that is obligatory for me to start with a few highlights from the Saint Peter’s Peacocks’ Cinderella run. Being the first No. 15-seed to make it to the Elite Eight will have astronomical impacts for the school and program (and already has for the head coach, Shaheen Holloway, who was recently hired as head coach at his alma mater, Seton Hall). The Peacocks’ biggest win came over number two seed Kentucky. To put that into perspective a bit more, check out the few tweets below that compare Kentucky and Saint Peter’s monetarily.

Not that money is everything, obviously based on the outcome of that game, but that places the magnitude of the win into even more perspective.

I can use one word to sum up how most of our friends around the Big Ten played; disappointingly. Going too in depth here would leave you reading a novel of reasons why the Big Ten should be better than it is in postseason play, but for this topic, I’ll just leave you with a question that needs answering.

In the next few years, which school in the Big Ten will get this conference a win it desperately needs to prove that it doesn’t just consistency pump out underperforming tournament teams? Being biased, I would hope that team could be Michigan State — but the Spartans have some improving to do with the roster first and foremost.

The good, bad, and sometimes ugly that comes out during March always leaves me wanting more. Here are some more of my favorite moments from the tournament.

“March Madness” is the only time of year that we can all spend way too much money on bets, trash talk our coworkers for their terrible bracket-making skills, watch a Cinderella team shock the nation, feel so terribly bad when our team loses, watch one of the greatest coaches in the history of basketball lose to his archrival and complain about how bad 9:20 p.m. Eastern Time tip off times are for national championship games. I am already looking forward to next year.

As of press time, we now only have 339 more days until the 2023 Selection Sunday show, so we get to do it all over again then!