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March
Madness: An Education for Australians and a Look at the
Final Four
In terms of cultural significance,
few events are more important in the United States than the
NCAA Tournament. March Madness, they call it, and the symptoms
are as follows:
- A total obsession with college hoops.
- The need to fill out tournament brackets and place them
in various locations such as the office, home and the local
bar.
- Inordinate concern about little-known colleges such as
George Mason and Cleveland State.
- A genuine belief in and hope for fairytales and Cinderella
stories.
- A need to constantly check box scores and live trackers
to ensure no game goes unnoticed.
- A refusal to question the actual existence of terms such
as bracketology.
- Arguing with everybody, from family to vagrants living
in a cardboard box at the end of the street, at a level
of final seriousness, that the “Elite Eight” should
be changed to the “Great Eight”: the issue
is far more important than the Global Financial Crisis.
- Face painting.
It is defined by Uncyclopedia
as “a brief, yet sudden
panic, where individuals who are otherwise regular, sane
humans find themselves constantly screaming about topics
such as pools, brackets and something simply referred to
as Gonzaga”.
Onset usually comes on mid-March during the conference tournaments
and the madness lasts until early April, Final Four weekend,
when the champion is determined and the bracket pools are
settled and lore is added to and the Northern spring sets
in.
March Madness is widespread and can be considered an epidemic
that lands annually.
Even President Obama has been struck down by it, filling
out a bracket on national television and deriding the state
of Pac-10 basketball, much to the annoyance of the residents
in California, Washington, Arizona and Oregon who helped
make him President. For the record, Obama picked three number
one seeds and a number two to make the Final Four. North
Carolina, who he picked to win it all, is his only remaining
team.
Everybody cares about the tournament.
It is America’s
version of the Melbourne Cup where everyone from the diehards
to the usually-ambivalent get involved, making college basketball
the most important show in town for three weeks. Passionate
college hoops fans await every game. Casual fans get attached
to the storylines. The non-hoops fan contemplates who would
win a battle between an Orangeman and a Sun Devil (both one
in the same to a good Catholic from Notre Dame or St. Joseph’s).
Their bracket is our sweep, their George Mason is our Rogan
Josh, their John Wooden is our Bart Cummings and their three
weeks in March are our three minutes in November.
In the words of Timothy Egan
of the New York Times, the NCAA Tournament is their “greatest sideshow, mood-lifter
and time-suck all in one. It’s sports at its most thrilling,
more so than the slow choreography of baseball’s World
Series, the bloated spectacle of the Super Bowl or the go-through-the-motions
slog of professional basketball playoffs. And forget about
college football, now facing the possibility of its championship
system being determined by Congress”.
There is a depth and width to the March Madness that does
not exist in any other modern day cultural phenomenon in
America making the tournament quintessentially Americana.
Baseball is too slow as a form of modern entertainment and
as such has declined in popularity. The NBA Championship
has never been able to propel itself into the stratosphere
of extreme importance. The Super Bowl is the most watched
event in the US but it is predominantly a big-city phenomenon,
the bastion of corporate and urbanised America. College Football
has no satisfying conclusion and as such is followed with
due caution.
Simply, March Madness is loved because of its simplicity
(kids playing basketball in a simple knockout tournament),
relative equality (a win is a win and a loss is a loss and
the champion is determined on the court), inclusivity (sixty-five
schools means sixty-five rabid supporter bases, colleges
are often located in regions without professional teams,
each stage is played across the country making the games
easily accessible) and its ability to generate hope (for
small schools, for big schools, for those who love a fairytale,
for those who love great moments, for those looking to be
distracted from the mire of everyday life).
Moments such as Christian Laettner’s 18-foot turnaround
jumper on the buzzer to beat Kentucky, Chris Webber’s
ill-advised timeout in the 1993 championship game, David
Thompson’s performance in the 1974 national semi-final
to end the UCLA juggernaut, Villanova’s unbelievable
upset of Georgetown and the victory of the all-black Texas
Western against the all-white Kentucky are woven deeply into
the fabric of American sports lore.
This year, four schools representing four very different
strands of American life remain.
The University of North Carolina,
the Tar Heels, entered the tournament as a number one seed,
the number one team
in the country and the clear tournament favourite. North
Carolina is a school steeped in basketball tradition and
is a college considered basketball royalty. Chapel Hill,
the home of UNC, lies in the heartland of college basketball
where no other game matters. The Tar Heels have won four
national titles in four different decades and lost the tournament
final a further four times. Dean Smith, who coached the team
from 1961 to 1997, has the second most wins of any coach
in college basketball history. Michael Jordan was a Tar Heel
as were the likes of Bob McAdoo, James Worthy, Billy Cunningham,
Hubie Davis, Sam Perkins, Lee Shafer and Vince Carter. They
represent college basketball elitism with the tradition certainly
continuing this year under coach Roy Williams, third all-time
in winning percentage in the NCAA. Senior Tyler Hansborough,
the 6’9 power forward who won every major award he
was eligible for last season, leads a team of outstanding
basketball players that includes outstanding junior point
guard and ACC Player of the Year Ty Lawson and pure shooter
Danny Green. North Carolina enter the Final Four as a short
priced favourite to dance the longest and proudest with a
victory to the Tar Heels a victory for basketball order,
structure and obscure monikers.
The University of Connecticut
do not have the history or tradition of North Carolina
but have come to be recognised
over the last two decades as a basketball powerhouse though
more in the factory mould than as anything to be revered.
There are 14 UConn players in the NBA today including Rip
Hamilton, Ray Allen and Ben Gordon and the school is renowned
for churning out ready-made professionals. UConn basketball,
much like say Florida football, is concerned only with winning,
undermining many of the higher ideals of college sports.
Graduation rates and a clean program don’t seem to
be major factors in Connecticut these days. They are coached
by Jim Calhoun, who has led the school to their only two
national championships (in 1999 and 2004) and has recently “embarrassed” the
school and the state, according to the Connecticut governor,
after he lambasted a reporter who queried his salary, saying
he would “not give a dime back”. Throw in the
current scandal regarding the improprieties regarding the
recruitment of a former player and the picture of Connecticut
basketball under Jim Calhoun is well and truly painted. The
fact the school is located in New England does nothing to
endear it to a working class warrior. The only likable thing
about the school is their mascot, the Husky, but even he
looks so well maintained and fed that one can’t help
but hate the privilege he has been born into. The Huskies
will be led by big man Hasheem Thabeet and tough forward
Stanley Robinson. Both will be rabidly hissed and booed by
any man, woman or child who claims personal decency as a
characteristic.
The Michigan State Spartans
are far more likable, the home town heroes to a state on
the brink this weekend. The Spartans
represent an area knocking on death’s door, where time
and money are both running out. Michigan is not a grand place
to be right now with car manufacturers closing doors and
unemployment rates soaring higher than Earvin “Magic” Johnson,
the greatest Spartan of them all. While the state is split
down the middle between those who sport the Spartan green
and those who wear the maze and blue of the Wolverines, there
is little doubt that the Michigan State men’s basketball
program is a source of pride in the Great Lake State. As
Wolverines basketball floundered under the weight of scandal
and the Detroit Lions continued to embarrass the state, as
the Pistons underachieved and eventually imploded and as
hockey’s decline undermined the recent successes of
the Red Wings, Michigan State basketball has been consistently
successful over the last decade. The Spartans have played
in twelve straight tournaments dating back to 1998 with five
Final Four appearances over that period and the school’s
second national title in 2000. The Tom Izzo era has been
one of stability and success. Going back further, Michigan
State partook in one of the most anticipated college basketball
matches in history when the Magic Johnson led Spartans defeated
the Larry Bird led Indiana State in the 1979 tournament decider,
a rivalry that would eventually define the NBA of the 1980’s.
When the Spartans step on to Ford Field in Detroit, they
will rightfully be the sentimental favourites. If Karma equates
to fairness, Michigan State will reign supreme as national
champion.
Villanova are another team
from a working class city, Philadelphia, one of basketball’s greatest towns. Philadelphians
are hard markers but there is little doubt that Villanova
has done the city proud on the basketball court and in a
way the team has summed up the sports ethos of the city:
gritty, determined, overachieving. Villanova are a school,
particularly in the current era under Jay Wright, for getting
good kids into the program who play hard and get the fundamentals
right. Nova also created the greatest upset in NCAA Tournament
victory by winning the 1985 championship, defeating the legendary
Georgetown team in the final after starting the tournament
as an eight seed. Villanova won on fundamentals that famous
night, shooting an amazing 22-for-28 and missing only one
shot in the second half. The Georgetown team led by Patrick
Ewing had no answers and one of the greatest moments in Philadelphia’s
long and luminous sports history was written. The Wildcat
faithful will be hoping to channel the legend of ’85
this weekend in the Motor City where they will head as the
tournament’s biggest underdog.
Betting and common sense suggest
North Carolina will defeat Connecticut in the final but
the tournament isn’t always
about betting and common sense and the hope of the fairytale
remains alive. Karma tends to play a bigger role in the NCAA
tournament than in any other sporting event. No team has
gotten within 12 points of North Carolina in the tourney
but the pressure of expectation must surely weight heavily
on the team that has been considered the top team all year.
It must also be noted that only six teams have won the tournament
ranked number one in the country since the seeding system
was introduced in 1979. They take on Villanova in the first
national semi-final and are far from certainties after Villanova
walked through their first three matches before a huge upset
win over Pitt. In the other semi-final, a class battle of
mammoth proportions is set to take place and if the tournament
gods have any class they will throw the working class Michiganites
a bone and allow the Spartans an upset win over a Connecticut
program ensconced in yet another scandal. It is a battle
of good versus evil, right versus wrong, Rocky versus Apollo
Creed. Michigan State will have home court advantage, the
goodwill of most of America and a state desperate for distraction
behind them. If ever there was a need for a fairytale, now
is the time.
Michigan State are the sentimental selection. And the selection
of this hoops fan.
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