Most of you probably don't know this, but I love watching basketball. Although the NBA is good, I've invested myself into college basketball which means that March is one of my favorite months. Along with the great weather that we have been experiencing, March means that the NCAA basketball tournament is going to begin. It's like a new beginning for a lot of teams; records don't matter anymore, rankings mean next to nothing, and everybody begins with a fresh slate. Cinderella teams that nobody has ever heard about can finally make their mark during March. All of this fares well for my favorite team, the Illini.
Illinois started the season ranked in the top 15 and expectations were very high. The team has four experienced seniors, an athletic sophomore class, and on top of all of that a highly touted freshman class. It seemed like a recipe for success, and for much of the season it was. They started off with a great record of 13-1, beating teams that they were projected to beat while pulling out a few surprises along the way. But then things started to fall apart. For whatever reason (the media claims that outside distractions, lack of competition in practice and unhappiness over the how many minutes players played per game), the team just stopped winning games. They lost against lowly teams like UIC and Indiana and were unable to win consistently. Since the beginning of January, the team has been unable to win consecutive games and it really seemed like the sky was falling. There were questions of whether the Illini would even make it into the tournament, and after finishing with a 19-14 record, I had my doubts as well. Luckily, the state of college basketball this year has been weaker than usual which means that when March rolled around the team found themselves comfortably in the tournament with a 9 seed.
Like I said before, March is like a new season that is five games long. Win five games and you are the champion. Doesn't sound too hard, does it? But apparently it is, because yesterday marked the first day of real competition, and man did madness rein free. Of the16 games that took place yesterday, seven games were decided by five points or less. Louisville, a team that many expected to reach the elite eight, lost against a 13 seed. Princeton, who got into the tournament off of a buzzer beater against Harvard, almost pulled off the upset against Kentucky. The so called "top dogs" of college basketball had their hands full yesterday against supposedly inferior teams. And as the Illini get set to play tonight, they go into the game as an underdog. With how abysmally bad the season ended, it seemed like a sure thing that they would lose. But after watching yesterday's games filled with drama and upsets, I have a lot more faith that they can come out on top tonight.
Win this game against UNLV and the seniors who have never won a tournament game have redeemed themselves. Win the next game against Kansas and it will compensate for the past four years without a tournament win. Because it's March, these crazy ideas aren't actually as obscure as they seem. There is a reason that it is called March Madness, and hopefully the Illini can fully embrace that and win a few games. With all of the craziness that happened yesterday, all I know is that you should always expect the unexpected (which in this case is the Illini actually winning a game).
I have never been an avid fan of basketball, but I remember the days when we made bets in elementary school on who would win. We had sheets where we would predict the outcomes of the matches, and when you guessed incorrectly you were "out". At the end of the season, the kids that were still "in" the game would go and play a match of their own. The winners of the game would be honored in the school, etc. Even though I knew little about basketball, I still got to experience the whole March Madness mood, and it was pretty great.
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I love March Madness. For me, college ball has always been so much more exciting than pro basketball. When I was in high school and college, I used to passionately follow Marquette University's team (because my second cousin was their coach and, living near Milwaukee at the time, I attended a lot of the games). The tournament was much more exciting for me back then because even though my team rarely made it into the sweet sixteen, I was familiar with most of the teams because I'd seen them play Marquette throughout the year. I still enjoy the NCAA tournament, though, and it will be fun to see how the Illini do tonight against UNLV tonight.
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