NCAA Mens Basketball Tournament

Essay by Anonymous UserCollege, UndergraduateA, November 1996

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It's March. Do you know what time it is? It's March Madness, the NCAA Mens

Basketball Tournament. The time of the year when you see commercials on CBS

announcing the Road to the Final Four, the pinnacle of the college basketball year. Each

year 64 teams vie for a spot in the Final Four. Teams from the East, Midwest, Southwest,

and West all compete for one spot from each division. The teams that play for one of

these spots can be classified into four different groups. The Number 1 through 4 seeds,

the Cinderella teams, the Bubble teams and the One Hit Wonders.

        The Number 1 through 4 seeds make up 1/4 of the tournament. These teams are

the strongest teams in the nation and are usually figured to go to the Final Four. The

teams ranked Number 1 in their bracket have the best chance of going to the Final Four.

Since 1980 at least one Number 1seed has gone to the Final Four. The number one

seeded team has also never been beaten in the first round of the NCAA tournament. The

teams that are 1 through 4 this year, and figure to be playing for the National

Championship, are Kentucky, UMass, Purdue, Georgetown, Cincinnati, Utah, Villanova,

and Arizona. All of these teams had to have had tremendous regular seasons and

conference tournaments to be seeded so high.

        On the other hand a 'Cinderella' team is a team that had a so-so regular season

and upset a higher ranked team in their conference tournament. They ride that wave of

momentum into the Field of 64 and hope to upset another higher ranked team in the first

and second rounds. These teams usually don't last farther than the Sweet Sixteen where

their season usually comes to an end. Teams...