March madness captivates school

Head+of+Upper+School+Butch+Kellers+bracket+is+displayed+at+the+entrance+of+Manzanita.+Many+students+and+faculty+members+made+brackets+to+try+to+predict+the+outcome+of+the+NCAA+March+Madness+Tournament.

Angele Yang

Head of Upper School Butch Keller’s bracket is displayed at the entrance of Manzanita. Many students and faculty members made brackets to try to predict the outcome of the NCAA March Madness Tournament.

by Angele Yang and Neal Sidhu

March Madness dates back to 1908 in Illinois. What started as a small yearly high school boys basketball competition transformed into a statewide tournament with more than 900 schools participating in less than 20 years.

Although most of the hype in Illinois was originally focused around high school competitions, over time college basketball became more popular. The National Association of Intercollegiate Athletics (NAIA) Men’s Basketball National Championship, held in 1937, was the first college basketball tournament in the U.S.

The NCAA first organized a college basketball tournament in 1939 and has been regulating the competition, which was later named March Madness, ever since.

March Madness is a tournament of in which each team is eliminated after one loss. The competition was originally organized between only 8 teams, but over time expanded into a national 64-team format.

Today, March Madness is an annual single-elimination tournament between 64 college men’s basketball teams from around the country. There are 4 divisions based on geographical location, each consisting of 16 teams. Games started on March 14 and end next Monday.

Many basketball fans today make tournament bracket predictions. In the past, Facebook has given $25,000 prizes to anyone who predicted the brackets correctly. This year, Warren Buffett announced that he would award any Berkshire Hathaway employee who could predict the Sweet 16 correctly 1 million dollars per year for life.

Varsity girls basketball team captain Jordan Thompson (12) predicts team brackets with her sister, Courtney Thompson (8), every year.

“We always pick underdogs to win the championship. Even though they never actually advance that far in the tournament, it’s fun to root for a team that nobody else expects to win,” Jordan said. “March Madness is unique because there are so many upsets, so it’s nearly impossible to make a perfect bracket.”

The first NCAA women’s college basketball tournament took place in 1982. It consisted of 32 college teams from all over the country. The tournament expanded to include 64 women’s teams in 1994.

Some teachers in schools across the country encourage students to create prediction brackets and sometimes award extra credit to students who make the most accurate prediction bracket.

“We have an APUSH March Madness NCAA tournament bracket,” AP U.S. History teacher Julie Wheeler said. “We are celebrating basketball, which was an American sport. It’s a good way to expose the Harker community to a wide variety of schools, colleges and universities that they might not know about. It’s good for geography, and it’s good for a little classroom competition.”

Many upper school students are interested in March Madness because they enjoy supporting specific teams.

“Personally, I like the Villanova Wildcats. They won last year,” Mihir Dixit (9) said. “Usually, I watch the Final Four [and finals] with a few of my friends.”

The Illinois High School Association sponsors March Madness and donates a portion of its proceeds to scholarships for Illinois high school students.

This piece was originally published in the pages of The Winged Post on March 28, 2017.