March Madness Wrap-Up

It’s time to wrap-up the madness that was. Every year sports fans look forward to what is affectionately known as “March Madness” – the men’s and women’s NCAA basketball tournament that takes place over the months of March and April.

The men’s and women’s tournaments are set up very similarly, with 68 teams making up the men’s field and 64 teams in the women’s. Each team is assigned a ranking, called a seed, from 1-16. There are four “1” seeds, four “2” seeds, and so on.

Since the men’s tournament includes 68 teams, there are four “play-in” games to narrow the field down to 64.

This year, the men’s tournament began on March 21st and the women’s on March 23rd.

In the first round of the men’s tournament, three 12-seeds defeated the 5-seeds they were matched up against. Florida Gulf Coast University became the first 15-seed to win their first two games before being defeated by Florida University in the “Sweet 16.”

As usual, there were few upsets in the opening round of the women’s tournament, though 12-seed Kansas managed to defeat 5-seed Colorado. After winning their next game as well, Kansas was the “Cinderella team” of the women’s bracket. However, they were easily dispelled by a score of 93-63 by 1-seed Notre Dame.

Wichita State, a 9-seed, reached the Final Four in the men’s tournament along with 1-seed Louisville and 4-seeds Michigan and Syracuse.

Louisville Men celebrating their tournament victory.

In Louisville’s Elite Eight matchup versus Duke, starting guard Kevin Ware broke his leg while attempting to block a Duke player’s shot. This opened up room for a team captain, Luke Hancock, who had suffered a shoulder injury earlier in the year, to play significantly more minutes. Hancock ended up being the Final Four MVP after Louisville dispatched Wichita State and then Michigan in the championship game.

Two 1-seeds, Connecticut and Notre Dame, were matched up in the Final Four while Louisville and California squared off on the other side of the bracket. Connecticut and Louisville made it through to the final but the Cardinal women could not repeat what their men’s team had done the night before.

Breanna Stewart, a freshman, earned the MVP award for the women’s final four as she led her Huskies to the national title.