Kansas and North Carolina to Face Off in the NCAA Championship

North+Carolina+and+Kansas+with+face+off+in+the+NCAA+Championship+tonight+April+4.+

Image via Athlon Sports

North Carolina and Kansas with face off in the NCAA Championship tonight April 4.

Dawson Patrick and Donte Jones

It’s that time of the year where college basketball takes over the sports scene for an entire month. This sporting frenzy has become known as March Madness and is probably the most exciting sporting event of the whole year.

March Madness is defined as the time period during the month of March when the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA)  single-elimination basketball tournament is held each spring in the U.S. This year was a very great year with a lot of dominant teams such as Gonzaga and Arizona; however, it’s Kansas and North Carolina facing off tonight in the championship. 

March Madness starts off with 68 teams.  The NCAA site states, “Thirty two teams  receive automatic bids for winning their respective conferences but the remaining 36 teams are given at-large bids by the NCAA selection committee based upon their performance during the season.” (Wilco). 

March Madness is an anticipated time of the year for sports fans. Format is really the reason why it got really popular. The single-elimination knockout format is one of the key reasons it became known as March Madness. The stakes are high from the very start, and there is no room for error. This tournament format lends itself to ‘Cinderella’ stories where a smaller team rides a wave of momentum to produce upset wins over highly skilled opponents. A big well respected team who can be thought to be the one to beat can have one bad game, and it will all be over. There are no second chances or a series like the World Series or the Stanley Cup by which a team can turn around their fate.

Will Marshall is a diehard North Carolina fan and is excited to see his team in the championship. Marshall actually thought this season was pretty good despite the lack of parody in the NCAA and he  enjoyed UNC’s season. “I though that UNC could actually make a huge run to the Elite Eight or Final Four as long as Caleb Love was playing well and scoring a lot.”

The final two teams, Kansas and North Carolina, will tip off tonight in the championship at 9:20 pm. 

 

 

Source:

Wilco, Daniel. “What is March Madness: The NCAA Tournament Explained”. NCAA.  14 March 2022. Web Accessed  31 March 2022.