It’s a great time of year to be an American sports fan. The just-completed “March Madness”—the NCAA-Division I men’s and women’s basketball playoffs—marked the end of “the winter lull in sports”—the relatively quiet month-and-a-half that comes after the Super Bowl in February.
Although the winter lull allows the excitement level to ease off for a while, there were still many gripping basketball and hockey games—both professional and collegiate—for sports fans to enjoy.
The most newsworthy sports story during this year’s “lull” is that the Boston Bruins are achieving historic success. In the highly competitive National Hockey League, the Bruins have become dominant. They’re on a pace to set the all-time records for victories and total points in a season. I have had the privilege of watching them handily defeat my two favorite teams, and I have to tip my hat to them. What a juggernaut. But will Boston prevail in the Stanley Cup playoffs? Stay tuned. Regular season champions often suffer defeat in the playoffs.
Returning to “March Madness,” what a national obsession it has become. Every year, more and more people engage in friendly “bracket” competition, where they predict who will win each game and move on to the Sweet Sixteen, the Elite Eight, the Final Four, and the championship game. Even schools from which I graduated decades ago are now asking me to fill in the brackets as part of their alumni outreach.
This year might have set a record for the most “busted brackets,” as lower seeds upset higher seeds at a stunning pace. On the men’s side, the madness started when Fairleigh Dickinson University—a 16 seed featuring the shortest average height (only six feet one inch!) in basketball—upset top-seeded Purdue, which happened to have the tallest average height, led by their seven-foot four-inch star center.
Also on the men’s side, for the first time in history, no Number One seeds advanced as far as the Elite Eight. Not only did no top seeds make it to the Final Four, but neither did any number two or three seeds. Other than fourth-seeded Connecticut, the eventual champion, the men’s Final Four featured three schools not known as basketball powerhouses—the University of Miami, Florida Atlantic University, and San Diego State University. Congratulations to the new teams in the spotlight!
While there isn’t as much parity in women’s basketball, it was still a remarkable season. As on the men’s side, none of the four number one seeds advanced to the women’s championship game, where a three seed, LSU, defeated second-seeded Iowa.
Perhaps the major story in the women’s tournament was that the heavy favorite, undefeated South Carolina, was upset by Iowa in one of the semifinal games. I had expected South Carolina to win because although Iowa featured Player of the Year, Caitlin Clark, South Carolina had superior overall talent and balance in their lineup. But Iowa found a way to spring players loose for too many layups, and that, combined with Clark’s dominating 41-point performance, led to a four-point margin of victory for Iowa.
Speaking of Clark, who scored both by driving layups and breathtakingly long three-point bombs of NBA length, I noticed that her form was often “off,” both in terms of getting her feet aligned with the basket and her overall balance. It reminded me a bit of a softball player I coached in a 12-and-under league years ago, who broke every rule of proper batting form. But since she got hits more than she made outs, I didn’t tinker with her form. I think Iowa’s coach has made the same wise decision: If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. I didn’t look up Clark’s success rate from three-point-range, but it had to be close to 50 percent—way, way above average.
And speaking of “way above average,” hats off to LSU’s Jasmine Clark, who came off the bench in the second quarter and put LSU in the driver’s seat by going five-for-five on three-pointers. The unsung sub turned out to be the star of the final. Way to go, Jasmine!
The last comments I’ll make about March Madness will be to compliment two of the women’s coaches. Dawn Staley, the coach of the South Carolina team that had been undefeated all season until the semifinal game, deserves to be commended for her outstanding sportsmanship.
You can see her influence when her players help up opponents that have fallen after collisions. The South Carolina players have clearly been taught to respect and even care for the players who are trying to defeat them.
At one point in one of the tournament games, an opponent lay injured on the court. The referees, for whatever reason, declined to stop play. Coach Staley, whose team had possession of the ball and enjoyed a five-on-four advantage, called timeout so that the injured player could be attended to. Admirable!
Kim Mulkey, the coach of victorious LSU, also deserves a shout-out. The lady may wear over-the-top flamboyant outfits during games, but she sure can coach. She has now won national championships as the coach of two different teams—Baylor three times (2005, 2012, and 2019) and now LSU. Her tears of joy and palpable love for her home state of Louisiana at the moment of victory were genuinely touching. One can accomplish much when motivated by love.
March Madness, besides providing its own thrills, has officially opened the floodgates for a jam-packed spring that should satisfy the most ardent sports fans.
During the final week of the tournament, another season of major league baseball got underway. This weekend is the hallowed Masters Tournament in golf. A week after that, the playoffs in both the NBA and NHL will get started and carry on all the way into June. (Yes, the Stanley Cup—hockey’s venerable trophy—is won in June, and in a couple of recent seasons, by the Tampa Bay Lightning. Hockey in Florida in June? Go figure.) At the end of April, football fans will be delirious as the annual NFL draft is held. Then in May, as the baseball season unfolds and the basketball and hockey playoffs grow in intensity, there will be the added attractions of the Kentucky Derby and the French Open tennis tournament.
Indeed, it’s a great time of year to be a sports fan.
