THE MADNESS BEGINS

By TAYLOR FAGAN

With college basketball season in full swing, students at WHS have been preparing for one of the biggest sporting events of the year: March Madness.  To those who are unfamiliar, March Madness is an annual basketball tournament, where 68 different NCAA college basketball teams compete against each other.  Teams are placed into matchups on a bracket and whoever wins, moves on; whoever loses, is cut from the remainder of the tournament.  

To many, March Madness is not new.  In fact, the tournament started in 1939, according to ncaa.com.  The annual tournament has attracted millions of viewers since then and has turned into a competition for the viewers as well.  A plethora of people fill out a bracket and they compete to see who has a near perfect one.  

The bracket is split into four sections, Midwest, South, East, and West, based off the region of the United States that each University is in.  For example, this year in the East Conference, Villanova University and Radford University will face off in the first round and the winning team will move onto round two. 

TAYLOR FAGAN FOR THE WIZARD WEEKLY 

The hype of March Madness has taken Washingtonville High School by storm.  There are several different ways to make a bracket.  One technique is for fans to observe as many NCAA basketball games as they can before March Madness begins in order to see which teams are the best.  Senior, Devin Lewis, is a firm believer that in order to have a successful bracket, it is pivotal that one keep up with college basketball and pay attention to statistics.  He expressed, “I love joining leagues to see if my bracket can prevail over the rest.  Keeping up with the season can help a little bit, but ultimately it is all madness when it comes to these games.  Any given team can win on any given night.” 

Another method of creating a March Madness bracket is not highly recommended:  guessing.  This is a strategy where one simply makes his or her best guess on which team will win in each matchup.  Senior, Sabrina LiVolsi, is another participant in bracketology.  During the 2017 March Madness tournament, LiVolsi won bragging rights by having a near perfect bracket.  Although she is not the biggest fan of basketball, she beat all odds and created a bracket that was better than most.  LiVolsi stated, “I randomly picked the teams based on their ranks.  I didn’t watch any college basketball up until the tournament last year, so I was just really lucky”.  

Whether participants study each basketball team or they randomly make guesses on who will win, the odds of having a perfect bracket are practically slim to none.  According to DePaul University professor, Jeff Bergan, the odds of having a perfect bracket are as high as one in one hundred and twenty-eight billion.  To put that into perspective,  an individual is more likely to become President of the United States than having a perfect March Madness bracket, stated on ncaa.com.  

Although the odds of having a perfect bracket are not likely, students continue to participate in creating a bracket and hope to be the lucky person to reign supreme.  The March Madness tournament is set to continue through April 2nd where the final two teams will battle it out for the national championship.