The greatest spectacle in college sports did not disappoint by any means this year. The NCAA Basketball tournament tipped off on March 15, and the two days combined featured 32 games being played, with the games starting right in the middle of the school day. The tournament this year lived up to its hype as we saw a classic Cinderella story, the first 16th seed upset in tournament history and a number of highlight buzzer beaters.

The tournament started with a highly anticipated matchup as Trae Young, the most popular player in college basketball, leading Oklahoma against the Atlantic-10 conference Champions, Rhode Island. The game set the tone for the entire tournament as Rhode Island won a nail bitter in overtime to move onto the round of 32. “I thought Oklahoma was going to win, honestly” senior Brian Gomberg quoted. “They have arguably the best player on their team it was pretty shocking,” added Gomberg. The first round didn’t feature an overwhelming amount of upsets but 2 major favorites to win the title with Buffalo beating Arizona and UMBC beating Virginia. Virginia was the title favorite and it became the first team in NCAA tournament history to lose in the first round as a number 1 seed breaking a drought of 16 seeds losing 135 straight games. Another major upset that became the Cinderella story of March Madness was 11th seed Loyola-Chicago beating 6th seed Miami on a buzzer beater 64-62. Loyola-Chicago started off the tournament hot and became only the fourth 11th seed to ever make the final four. Senior Sebastian Ospina exclaimed his anger with Loyola-Chicago, “They destroyed my bracket, absolutely destroyed it! But hey, it’s all a part of the madness.”

The second final four team was Kansas who played in an instant classic overtime win in the Elite Eight against Duke to secure its spot. To round out the rest of the Final Four teams was Villanova and Michigan, who faced relatively easy roads as Villanova had an average margin of victory of 17.7 points, and Michigan became the first team to not play a top five seeded on its journey to the Final Four. The matchups were set for the fight for the national title as Michigan took on Loyola-Chicago and Villanova was to play Kansas. Loyola-Chicago was looking to become the first 11th seed to make it to the championship but Michigan had history on its side as they cut the Ramblers’ storybook season short with a 12-point victory. Villanova kept its season alive with a dominant 16-point win against Kansas in a game which they broke the record for 3-pointers made with a whopping 18 makes.

The final two teams standing were Villanova and Michigan and the threeweek long tournament was finally ready to come to an end. The much-anticipated national title game featured Villanova going for their second title in three years and Michigan looking for its first championship since 1989. The game ended up being very disappointing as Villanova obliterated Michigan and even led as much as 20 points in the second half. The one bright spot of the game was the shocking performance off the bench from Nova’s Donte DiVincenzo, who had 31 points to help his team win. Villanova was the team cutting down the nets at the end of this year’s tournament. It was another great March Madness and next years can’t come any sooner!