March Madness Upsets Are Making College Basketball Great Again
Teams like UMBC and Loyola (IL) are showing us that small schools do indeed belong in the tournament.
It’s every college basketball fan’s favorite time of the year, March Madness. It’s the time where college students are usually going on or coming from spring break. For fans there is jubilation if their team wins, and frustration if their team loses. However, it’s not only the games that matter but also the stories.
In a shocking display of dominance #16 seed University of Maryland-Baltimore County, also known as UMBC, beat the University of Virginia, the #1 seed in the South Region and the #1 overall seed in the tournament, in a stunning 20-point blowout. In fact, UMBC is the first ever #16 seed to upset a #1 seed in the NCAA men’s tournament. Before #16 seeds were 0–135 all-time against #1 seeds in the NCAA men’s tournament, but it’s not just UMBC that’s making noise in the tournament.
Led by the heartfelt story of 98-year-old nunn Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt, the Loyola Ramblers are officially this year cinderella’s story. Schmidt serves as the team chaplain for the Loyola Ramblers men’s basketball team, and her dream was for the team to make the Sweet 16. Her dream has been more than fulfilled as the #11 seeded Ramblers have secured a spot in the Final Four.
Now after three consecutive upsets over #6 seed Miami (FL), #3 seed Tennessee, and #7 seed Nevada in the South Region by a combined four points, and a dominant win over #9 seed Kansas State on Saturday night, the Ramblers will go to their second-ever NCAA Men’s Final Four to face Michigan for a chance to go to the national championship game in next weekend.
With the surprising amount of upsets in the 2018 NCAA Men’s Tournament, there are questions fans and pundits ask in a year like this. Are March Madness upsets good for college basketball? Yes. Here’s why.
The NCAA Men’s tournament is not like the NFL where basically the Patriots are always the AFC representative for the Super Bowl every year. It’s not like the NBA where we have the same Finals matchup every year with the Cavs and Warriors. The only major sporting event that comes close to the unpredictability of March Madness is the World Series in Major League Baseball, which isn’t popular among young fans. The NCAA tournament is where the underdog thrives. There is so much emotion piled into this tournament because many of the players will not make it to the NBA.
Most fans love the underdog in the NCAA tournament. Whether it be George Mason making their historic Final Four run in 2006, or Stephen Curry leading the Davidson Wildcats to the Elite Eight in 2008, the 68-team field has always been the king of surprises in March.
Without those surprises you wouldn’t have moments where Georgia State head coach Ron Hunter fell off his stool after his son R.J. hit the game winner to upset Baylor in 2015. You also wouldn’t have HBCU Hampton University upsetting Iowa State University back in 2001 along with fellow HBCU Norfolk State University upsetting the University of Missouri in 2012.
You also wouldn’t have heard of Duke, one of college basketball’s crown jewels, losing to Lehigh, Mercer, VCU, and South Carolina early in the NCAA tournament. You wouldn’t have heard of UMBC, a school that leads the nation in producing African-American graduates to pursue M.D.-Ph.D’s. It’s quite fitting they defeated UVA, known for letting white supremacists march on their campus this past August.
College basketball programs like Duke, UNC, Kentucky, Kansas, Villanova, Michigan State, and UCLA represent the traditional teams that make the tournament every year. It’s not the small schools’ fault. The big basketball programs consistently bring in top tier talent, and it can be difficult for them to compete at times. However, the small schools often times play looser than the big schools because they have nothing to lose.
Nobody predicted a Loyola-Kansas State Elite 8 matchup in the beginning of the season or tournament. Heck nobody predicted that Florida State and Syracuse would last longer in the tournament than UNC and Michigan State . However, it goes to show how crazy this tournament is every year, and that’s why it’s called March Madness!
Kingsley Iyawe is a senior, Mathematics major from Atlanta, GA. He is an editor at The Maroon Tiger.
