March Midness

March Madness, the renowned college basketball tournament, is famous for multiple reasons. The tournament is organized using a seeding system; the highest seed plays the lowest seed, and so on. Portraying the nation’s top college basketball players and teams isn’t what makes March Madness so great; what makes it truly unique is the thrill of the upset—like when a 16-seed point guard, who has no shot of making the NBA, wrecks a team of five-star recruits. It’s the coaches—who awaken their teams at halftime—orchestrating a comeback that no one believed could happen. As sports fans, why do we adore upsets and underdog stories?

Upsets show us that what is written and expected doesn’t always happen; in our own lives, we can mount a comeback and win when all the odds are stacked against us. More than anything, upsets make us feel alive—as if we are right by the court, holding our breath with the 16-seed as the ball floats towards the basket with less than a second to go on the clock. 

March Madness is also unique in its bracket feature, which enables anyone to attempt the insurable task of picking the correct outcomes of all 63 games. The catch? The odds of a perfect bracket are roughly one in 9.2 quintillion, and no one has ever perfectly predicted the tournament. This is the magic of March Madness—defined by unpredictability. Many notable upsets in recent times include when #16 Fairleigh Dickinson beat #1 Purdue in 2023; #2 Kentucky falling to #15 Saint Peter's in 2022; and, most recently,  #14 Oakland Grizzlies taking down #3 Kentucky Wildcats, punctuated by Jack Goehlke’s 10 three-pointers. These only exemplify the power of March Madness to elevate nobodies to stardom. 

For these reasons, March Madness captivates sports-watchers and more. However, this year’s edition—dubbed “March Midness” by several supporters—has failed to do so. The final four consists of all four one-seeds, and the successful brackets have few to no upsets. This year’s edition only had one team seeded outside the top six in the Sweet 16—the top 16 teams left in the tournament. This means that after two rounds of games (48 games), all but one underdog team were eliminated. This was the fewest number of low seeds in the Sweet 16 since 2007, during which the lowest seed after the first two rounds was a seventh seed. There has only been one “buzzer beater” this year, which occurred in the matchup between fourth-seeded Maryland and 12th-seeded Colorado State, when Maryland’s freshman center Derik Queen made a floater off of the backboard with no time left on the clock. Had the two teams’ seeds been flipped, fans would have been far more excited—they are tired of seeing the best team win. If the whole tournament had no upsets, there would be no reason to watch it; the winner would be clear before the game had even begun.

As sports fans, we support teams and watch because we enjoy them and the sport, but more so because we want to feel the thrill and emotions. As a player, beating a team you expected to beat feels normal, but upsetting a team you know is better is what we play for. It is the same for an observer—we want to feel connected to the players. 

College basketball fans have expressed that this year’s edition of the coveted tournament is one of the worst of all-time. There is one clear reason behind this dissent: the apparent lack of upsets. The tournament in the past has thrived off of unpredictability; a few lower-seeded teams defy the odds and make deep runs, captivating the audience. People will cheer on a college that they have zero connection to simply based on the improbability of them winning. Now, die-hard fans and casual viewers are all deeply interested in the story of an improbable deep run. This is what makes a good March Madness—the fans have emotional investment in the tournament. A surprising upset defines the spirit of March Madness.

As for March Madness 2025, no underdog teams made it past the third round. This year’s iteration completely went against the coveted reputation of the tournament. People expected chaos, but this year, there was none to be found. Time will tell, but 2025 March Madness may go down as one of the most forgettable in recent history.