Getting the Most out of March Madness

Virginia: From chumps to champs

Virginia winning the national championship one year after becoming the first #1 seed to lose to a #16 seed has to be one of the greatest sports stories of the decade.  In fact, March Madness has always been about stories, and the Tournament Selection Committee knows it.  March Madness is even more enjoyable if we let these stories become part of our own.

There is abundant evidence that the Selection Committee considers the stories of teams and players when creating the annual bracket.  Was it coincidence the Committee positioned UCF to play Duke in Round 2 this year?  UCF coach Johnny Dawkins was the player who started it all for Coach K.  He was Coach K's first blue chip recruit.

Coach K and Johnny Dawkins

After leaving Duke, Dawkins enjoyed a long NBA career before becoming Coach K's top assistant.  Dawkins then took the head job at Stanford, only to return to Duke for several more years, before moving on to UCF.  Coach Dawkins' star player this year was his son, Aubrey Hawkins, a sensational player who cut his teeth as a boy running around Cameron Indoor Stadium while his father assisted Coach K.

No, there are no coincidences with the Selection Committee.  They knew exactly what they were doing matching up Duke and UCF.  Another example from this year is the first round matchup between Louisville and Minnesota.  Until the recent pay for play scandal, Louisville's coach was Rick Pitino. Some coaches always seem able to help their teams perform in the tournament, no matter their regular season.  Pitino was one of these, along with guys like Tom Izzo at Michigan St. and Bob Huggins at Cincinnati and then West Virginia.  These coaches' teams consistently go deep in the tourney, no matter their seeding.

Richard (left) & Rick (right)

This year Louisville faced it's first tourney Pitino-less, so the Selection Committee decided to make amends by pitting them against Minnesota . . . who is coached by none other than Richard Pitino, son of Rick.  Another coincidence?  Unlikely.  Minnesota won a very emotionally charged game. 

In 2010 Duke won the national championship with a collection of role players.  No one from that group made an impact in the NBA.  Although Duke was a #1 seed, they were not expected to win the tournament that year.  Back then I ran my brackets like a hedge fund manager.  I had 6-8 brackets entered on ESPN and almost every game saw me rooting for and against both teams.  I was a basketball schizophrenic.   Even though I graduated from Duke Law School and was a big Duke fan, since conventional wisdom had Duke losing in 2010, none of my brackets had Duke making the Final Four.  When Duke won it all, several people congratulated me and commented on how well my bracket must have performed.  When I sheepishly informed them that I had not chosen Duke, they couldn't hide their surprise and disappointment.  I was considered a sellout for not having supported my school.

It was time to rethink my basketball world.  When March 2011 rolled around, I made some changes.  First, I decided to choose Duke to win every year.  Duke had won four times in 20 years, so odds were that about every five years I was going to be very, very happy.  I figured I had no hope of accurately guessing which particular year Duke would win, but that I could take comfort knowing eventually Duke would win.  Sure enough, when they won in 2015 I ended up in the 99.8 percentile on ESPN's Tournament Challenge.  More importantly, I had a blast riding their winning streak.

The second change I made was to create only one bracket.  No more hedging.  Since I didn't participate in paid pools anyway, I realized I wasn't hedging my bets, I was just hedging my happiness.  I decided to stand by my choices and invest in every game.  I wanted to feel the full joy of victory; therefore, I had to accept the full agony of defeat.

Third, I decided to look for stars and for stories.  I realized that every so often a star was able to impose his will on March Madness.  Carmelo Anthony, Stephen Curry, Kemba Walker etc.  These players each took over the tournament, bringing us along for the ride.  I decided to hitch my wagon to players like these, knowing that every few years I could look forward to riding a star's wave of success.  For example, this year I picked Murray State to win as a #12 seed because I believed Ja Morant was going to rise to the occasion.  He was spectacular in his two games.

As far as stories go, I think the best example is Wichita State.  The Wichita State Shockers are not historically a basketball powerhouse, a distinction that belongs to their in-state neighbors, Kansas.  I write in-state neighbors instead of in-state rivals for a reason.  Wichita State and Kansas are not rivals.  Kansas, the blue bloods of the Big 12, would not condescend to play the local state school from the podunk Missouri Valley Conference.  In fact, Kansas hadn't agreed to play WSU since 1993.

In 2007, Wichita State Coach Gregg Marshall took over a middling team with little basketball tradition and soon had the Shockers winning 30 games a year.  Tournament wins followed and in 2013 they lost in the finals to Louisville.  Marshall turned Wichita State into a Final Four team, but Kansas still wouldn't play them.  Chris Webber even said on national television that Kansas was scared to play Wichita State.  Finally, the Selection Committee took matters into their own hands, because that's what they do.

Kansas, are you listening?

In the 2015 tournament, Kansas and Wichita State were positioned just like Duke and UCF in 2019--if they both won their first round matchups, they would play each other.  When they each won, the state of Kansas went crazy.  Most of America had no idea what was going on behind the scenes of this game.  Because I happened upon an article about the bad blood between the schools and saw a story, I picked Wichita State to win.  I was sure Wichita State would be looking for vengeance.  Sure enough, it was a 78-65 shellacking that was far worse than the score shows.  Kansas didn't have a chance.  And even though WSU lost their next game to Notre Dame, Shocker Nation didn't care.  They had beat Kansas.

So what's the point?  I think we can get more out of March Madness.  Of course, you can continue filling out multiple brackets in an effort to hedge your way to the top.  Or, considering my 7 year old beat 95% of ESPN talking heads both of the last two years, you can fill out your bracket to maximize your tournament enjoyment.  Create one bracket, look for players you want to root for, teams with a chip on their shoulder, and coaches who know how to squeeze out tournament success.

This year I felt Virginia's story demanded my attention.  I picked them to go to the final against my beloved Blue Devils, then I stared at that matchup for quite awhile.  I knew Duke gave Virginia two of their three losses on the season, and I also knew Duke had a transcendent star in Zion Williamson.  But I feared Duke couldn't beat Virginia three times in one year, and I also saw Tom Izzo's MSU team standing in Duke's way.  Izzo just knows how to hit the kill button in March.

I was at an impasse.

In the end, I stuck with my rule to choose Duke, knowing I would never forgive myself if Zion cut down the nets in April.  Duke was my team, and Zion was this year's star.  Surely that was more significant than Virginia's story.

This confluence of storylines, stars, and coaches made this year's tournament especially enjoyable.  Johnny and Aubrey Dawkins vs. Coach K and Zion; Pitino/Pitino and Izzo; Duke and Virginia.  In the end, Virginia's story was just too strong, their desire for redemption too great.  It's stories like theirs that makes March Madness so magical, we just need to look for them.  I promise the Selection Committee is doing just that.  March Madness is much more fun if we stop seeing our brackets as applications to Goldman Sachs and start incorporating its stories into our own.

Long live March Madness, and three cheers for an eight team College Football Playoff!