March Madness is the Greatest Postseason of All Sports

By: Sahil Patel

    Every year, as the month of March approaches, millions of people from around the world fill a bracket for the college basketball playoffs. And every year, we are treated to countless upsets, breakout players, and cinderella teams.  64 teams battle for one goal, to win the championship, and usually there is no one dominant team. 

    

  

    In recent years, we can remember some powerhouse teams who come into the tournament looking like heavy favorites, yet they fail to live up to expectations and usually go down to weak teams. A very recent example is of Kentucky (2014-15 season), who had almost pulled off an undefeated season, but lost to Wisconsin in the championship game.

    Point being is that the tournament is basically always unpredictable. In other major sports, such as NBA basketball or NFL football, we see that the top teams almost always win the championship. However every year, we are in agony because our brackets are always busted due to the fact that no team has an upper-hand in this tournament. 

Top teams usually win the Superbowl come playoff time in the NFL

    Just take this year for example. Michigan St. was picked by 61.8% of all entires in the ESPN Tournament Challenge to make it to the Final Four, however got upset by Middle Tennessee, a team no one heard of until this event. You might have noticed all the tight games this year as well. It seems as if all the games are decided by a point in the closing seconds! 

    Another major story that occurred during this year's college basketball postseason is that of the Texas A&M Aggies pulling what many say is the greatest comeback in basketball history. They were down by 12 points with only 35 seconds left, and soon the turnovers piled on and the game went to overtime. After a second overtime, the Aggies prevailed and moved on to the Sweet 16 round. 

The Aggies made one of the most memorable comebacks of recent memory 

    In addition to that, I believe that the college basketball tournament is the best throughout sports is because every year, different schools seem to be contenders. Aside from the special bunch of schools that have good enough teams to make it every year; Kentucky, Duke, Wisconsin, and so on, we see some schools in our brackets yearly that we've never heard of earning high seeds. One that took me by surprise is the ranking of Oregon being 1st seed in their conference, when they are usually known as a prestigious football school.

    To conclude, we all have different opinions on this highly debated topic, yet I believe I've proven my case with the points I've made. Please feel free to comment your take.