Basketball

March 26, 2024

This was another tough year for the amateur (or even professional) prognosticators for NCAA Men’s Basketball.  Once more there was a record number of brackets filled out (22,114,630 brackets).  Once more all the perfect brackets have been busted after the first weekend.  The two largest predictions that failed were #6 BYU’s loss to #11 Duquesne (57–71) which broke 9,352,798 brackets and #8 Mississippi State’s loss to #9 Michigan State (51–69) which broke 9,298,147 brackets.  I my favor, I predicted both games correctly.  The two biggest upsets were #3 Kentucky losing to #14 Oakland (76–80) and #4 Auburn losing to #13 Yale (76–78).  I got both games wrong.  There were also two classic #5 to #12 losses, as Wisconsin lost to James Madison (61–72) and Saint Mary’s lost to Grand Canyon (66–75).  I failed to pick either of the upsets and the Cinderella teams both lost in the second round.  The other scare came in the second round as #9 Texas A&M took #1 Houston to overtime before bowing 95–100.  Most of the 48 games proved entertaining to watch.

When I looked online, I found the bigger news came out of the NCAA Women’s Basketball.  Iowa Hawkeyes guard Caitlin Clark became the NCAA’s Division-I all-time leading scorer in basketball passing Hall of Famer “Pistol” Pete Maravich in a win over the Ohio State Buckeyes on March 3rd.  Clark had already eclipsed the NCAA women’s record of 3,397 points set by Kelsey Plum at Washington (2013-17).  Former Kansas star Lynette Woodard held the women’s major college basketball record (i.e., prior to NCAA) with 3,649 points (1978-81).  Clark entered the final regular season game needing 18 points to pass Maravich for the all-time mark of 3,667 points. She set the record with a pair of free throws in the final seconds of the first half and finished the game with 35 points, 9 assists, and 6 rebounds as No. 6 Iowa beat No. 2 Ohio State 93-83.  That gave Clark a career total of 3,685 points.  Tickets for a Clark game is one of the hottest commodities in sports.

I guess you could say the prognosticators were better this year than they were in 2023.  Last year there were 20,056,273 brackets filled and all had fallen by the second night of the first round.  At least the extra 2 million brackets filled in 2024 kept the predictors in the mix until the second round.  On the women’s side the predictors did only slightly better.  Of the 3,250,647 brackets filled all but 11 had fallen going into the final day of round 2.  The second round saw the prognosticators continue to struggle and entering the Women’s Sweet 16 there are only three perfect brackets remaining.  No one has ever predicted a perfect bracket (men’s or women’s) , but Gregg Nigl from Columbus, Ohio, has the verified bracket closest to perfection in 2019.  Nigl correctly guessed the first 49 games of the men’s tournament until #3 ranked Purdue defeated #2 Tennessee in the Sweet 16.  The NCAA said the odds of a perfect 63-game bracket are 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 (approximately 1 in 9.2 quintillion).

THOUGHTS:  I have found the progression over the last years interesting on how ESPN handles both basketball tournament brackets.  Two years ago, the Women’s programs made a push to be included under the umbrella of March Madness and that happened last year.  After no perfect brackets again last year (or ever), this year ESPN introduced the 2nd Shot Bracket for both men and women that allows starts over beginning with the Sweet 16 tournament games (32 teams) with the possibility of a greatly reduced cash prize.  I filled out five more brackets but will probably not get any closer than I did with the 10 original brackets I completed.  I have learned that reality is not being pessimistic.  It is good to see the rise of women’s sports as we strive for parity.  Sports (amateur, college, pro) may be driven by money and advertising dollars, but it is the “love of the game” that still inspires young participants.  Act for all.  Change is coming and it starts with you.