March Madness

By Dee Dee Smith

In March of each year the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) holds a men’s and women’s Division 1 (that is large colleges/universities with major sports programs) basketball tournament.  Held at the end of the regular season, this exciting three week competition sends college basketball fans and the sports media into “madness.” 

The competition begins with over 60 qualifying teams.  Teams are then matched-up for competition, and the winner of each game proceeds to the next round.  The last teams standing are known as the Sweet Sixteen (the last 16 teams in the tournament), the Great Eight (the last eight teams remaining), and finally the Final Four (the last four teams, one team representing each of the four tournament regions). 

The Final Four is the semi-finals of the NCAA national championship.  In this tournament game, two teams will be eliminated, and the remaining two teams will face off for the NCAA National Championship Trophy. 

There are four different awards given at the NCAA National Championship.  These awards are the Most Outstanding Player (given by the Associated Press), the Regional Championship Award (each team from the Final Four will receive this bronze plated trophy), the National Runner Up Trophy (this silver plated award is given to the loser of the finals) and the NCAA National Championship Trophy (gold plated and given to the winner of the NCAA national championship). 

As a tradition, the winning team of both the regional and the national championship will cut down the game net with the coach having the honor of cutting the last string.  Each player along with the coaching staff will keep a piece of the net to commemorate the victory  Additionally, similar to that of professional sports, the winning team will hang the National Championship banner in their home arena. 

Since it's inception in the late 1930s, the UCLA men's team has won the most NCAA National Championship Division 1 titles.  In the late 1960s and early 1970s, UCLA won seven consecutive championships under the tutelage of John Wooden.   Kareem Abdul-Jabbar and Bill Walton were also a part of UCLA’s winning legacy.  In the women's division, Tennessee has dominated but Connecticut has also done quite well.  Both WNBA’s Rebecca Lobo and Diana Taurasi were part of Huskies' women's championship teams.  Several other WNBA and NBA players were part of NCAA national championship teams.  Detroit Pistons Richard "Rip" Hamilton helped to lead the men‘s Connecticut Huskies to a championship in 1999  Hamilton also received the designation of Most Outstanding Player.  Bill Russell was part of University of San Francisco’s men’s winning team in 1955, and Earvin “Magic” Johnson led Michigan State University to a win over Larry Bird and Indiana State University in 1979. 

The March Madness regional and championship games are played at a major sporting venue such as the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, or the Edward Jones Dome in St. Louis.