March Madness is the biggest end of year tournament for NCAA college basketball. It’s single elimination and there are 68 teams that participate. 8 of these teams have to play a “play-in game” to earn a sport in the final field of 64. There will be three weekends of pure NCAA basketball to make it to the Final Four. The first weekend sees two rounds of basketball played to get the tournament down to 16 teams, or the “Sweet Sixteen.”
The second weekend is the start of the Sweet Sixteen and teams will play to make it to the third round. The third round is the last eight teams, the “Elite Eight”. The final weekend of March Madness is the most anticipated part of the tournament with the final four teams, the best teams in the country playing for the championship. This “Final Four” weekend brings a lot of life to the city. Passionate college basketball fans will be flooding the host city, which is Houston this year, and everyone all showing their love for the sport.
Dark horses are teams that aren’t favored to win the tournament and are considered a number four seed or below. There are many dark horses this year with all the higher ranks such as Purdue, Gonzaga, and Texas all having losses and not looking like the favorites for their own conference tournaments.
Our favorite dark horses that are making early runs by entering their conference tournaments are TCU, Indiana, and Providence. The mid-major dark horses that have played really well against their own conferences are going to get a chance to play Power 6 teams. We think San Diego State, Oral Roberts, St. Mary’s, and Florida Atlantic University (FAU), are a few teams that could go from being a “mid-major” to beating a Power 6 team in the tournament.
March Madness is one of the nation’s favorite tournaments to watch on television each year. The really cool thing about this tournament are the upsets that occur each and every year. We will be talking about our favorites to win the tournament, and the teams with a real, “best chance” to win the Tournament (Vegas). Personally, I think Texas will win because they have proven they can do significant damage, even with their coach being fired in the beginning of the season. Jack’s favorite to win the tournament is TCU. TCU is a true high seed contender because of their ability to score on fast breaks and their experience on the court. Both teams play in the Big 12, which is the best conference for college basketball these days, proving they can play though competition at a high level each and every week.
Our other favorites are Marquette and UCONN. These universities are always good and this year they are trying to make the push to be a top 5 seed and win the tournament. Both teams play extremely well in their respectable conference, the Big East. On the other hand, Vegas has other teams they think will win the championship. In order these are the teams that they think are most likely to win the championship; Houston, Alabama, Arizona, Kansas and Purdue. All of these teams have been consistently top 7 all year and have proven that they deserve the top spot.
All teams have experienced players but Houston will be extremely difficult to beat as they have an extremely athletic team. As well as Purdue as they have 7’4” Zach Edey carrying their inside paint shots. As a conclusion, we are both excited to see how the tournament goes and can not wait to see who upsets who.
