| Well, here it is. Tournament time. If you haven’t already, now is when you need to get bracketing. Pull out a pencil, and start trying to predict the most unpredictable contraption known to athletic fandom. The bad news, especially for those of you seeking to overturn odds of around one in nine quintillion and complete the first perfect bracket in known history, is that this year’s tournament features no great teams and a ton of really good ones, making the guesswork even more complex. The upside, especially for those of you who revel in delicious drama and nail-biting basketball, is the same: that this year’s tournament features no great teams and a ton of really good ones. After all, equality equals excitement. The filling of the 68-team field came, as ever, with a lot to parse and a number of matchups to muse about. As always, there is the chance to dream for schools great and small and the ultimate signal that March is here: this brief window when spring looms and college basketball becomes the most important game being played in the country. First, the pertinent facts. Gonzaga comes in as the top overall seed, joined on the 1-line by Arizona, Kansas and Baylor. Duke, in Mike Krzyzewski’s final dance, is a No. 2 seed in the West but will begin its campaign in Greenville, South Carolina, a four-hour road trip from Durham, North Carolina. Tennessee, SEC champion for the first time since 1979, can feel justifiably angry about being a No. 3 seed, and coach Rick Barnes spent the last couple of days letting everyone know it. Michigan is there, liked enough by the committee to not be among the last four in and disliked enough by the hoops community that its inclusion — after 14 losses and Juwan Howard’s late-season suspension — was manifestly unpopular. The Wolverines will be among familiar company. The Big Ten was the most represented conference, with nine picks, a year after the same number of selections generated only one team that reached the Sweet 16. Dayton was the unluckily excluded squad, edged out of the field, hearts broken, when upstart Richmond squeaked past Davidson in the final of the Atlantic 10 Tournament on Sunday. Oklahoma, SMU and a red-hot Texas A&M could also count themselves unfortunate to be on the outside, with Indiana, Rutgers, Notre Dame and Wyoming drawing sighs of relief. So then, here we are, on the cusp of the First Four lead-off games, with barely enough time for fans to hastily formulate impromptu travel plans or lock in viewing schedules. It starts with the brackets. Because of course it does, this ultra-nerdy staple that long ago made its way to the masses. All 67 games form a nonstop feast of extreme physicality and unceasing toil, but if you’re not on the court drenched in sweat, you’re one of the rest of us, transformed into a numbers-obsessed fanatic for a month. There is more information than ever before with which to make your choices. Now is when we hear about quadrants and NET rankings and KPIs, BPIs and tempo ranks, including so many ways to calculate strength of schedule that it makes your eyes glaze. It all plays into our inner desire to beat the system, but of all things, this is a system that can never be toppled. Your bracket will get busted sooner or later — probably sooner — and you won’t be alone. Year after year, the upsets rain down, and it is only occasionally that there is any rhyme or reason to them. This is basketball, played by young men who are talented and capable but also human. Anything can happen over 40 minutes, and amid the paralyzing reality that defeat leads to the end of the season and possibly the career, stuff happens. Always. That’s why it’s so involved, too. During a regular-season NBA game, you’re probably not going to be jumping off the couch much, even if it’s your favorite team playing and the contest is headed for double overtime. Yet during the NCAA tourney, millions will be doing just that for teams they know nothing about and might not have even heard of until Sunday. Quick, where is Longwood University? Didn’t think so. There used to be one inalienable truth and one only — that a top seed can’t lose to a No. 16 — but even that doesn’t hold anymore. Still, it is the unpredictability that provides the comfort. Nothing gives satisfaction to the sports fan quite like an upset, and they arrive in droves. So while mouthwatering matchups might await, Gonzaga and Duke are on an Elite Eight collision course, Tennessee and Villanova would highlight the Sweet 16, and Kentucky against the high-octane dynamism of Murray State would light up the second round, there is a better than average chance that those eventualities don’t come to pass. Amid it all, find a moment to reflect on how good it is to be in this spot. It has been three full years since there was a March Madness we could recognize. In 2020, the tournament was an early casualty of COVID-19, with sports everywhere and most typical American life shutting down the very week before the field would’ve been filled. Last year was necessarily different, eerie even. There were upsets, sure. Jalen Suggs banked a buzzer-beater for the ages, and Baylor played like a dream all season and even better in the title game. But all those things took place amid comparative quiet, with every game held in the state of Indiana and none of them with a capacity of more than 25%. This time, it is the real deal once again: in your face, in your life, in your workplace and all over the sports universe, mediaverse, metaverse and any other kind of verse you can think of. Now where’s that pencil? |
