March Madness now March Sadness for basketball hopefuls

Michigan State Spartans’ Xavier Tillman scores against Duke Blue Devils in an East Regional tie. Picture: Rob Carr/Getty

Personally, I have loved it. Growing up, the only access to US sport we had was a Saturday morning NBA highlights show on STV or some live offerings on a newly-launched Channel 5 at midnight. Now, though, there is a plethora of sport to choose from.

Well, there was until Covid-19 hit and all sports, correctly, opted to suspend their leagues to assist in slowing the spread of the virus. These days if you tune into any of the stations all you’ll see is people debating the big questions. When can the seasons start up again? Will they ever start up again? Do we write this season off?

Fans, of course, are disappointed by the seemingly premature end to the season and I would assume most athletes are, too. There was still much to play for in the NHL and NBA, while baseball hadn’t started. But we all accept bigger things are going on right now.

For me, the biggest sporting loss isn’t in the professional game.

This past weekend should have been one of the best weekends in the sporting calendar: a weekend filled with shocks, drama, personalities and shooting stars – in more ways than one. It would have been the Regional Finals weekend of March Madness.

March Madness is the term used to describe the NCAA Basketball season-ending tournament. The tournament plays out from the middle of March through to the first weekend in April and has the top-ranked 68 college basketball teams competing in the rarest of events in US sport – single-elimination games, or as we call it in the UK, a knockout competition.

A selection committee seeds the teams from 1-68 and then sorts them into their regions by their location. The seeds are then usually revealed in a media event. That leaves four brackets of 16 teams – there is a small tournament among eight teams before this is called the First Four – East, South, Midwest and West, in which the top-seeded team plays the lowest-seeded team.

These regional events are played over two dates, in a shared venue central to that region, with the winners progressing through to the Semi-Final Weekends and then the Final Four.

So why is losing this tournament so disappointing? Well, firstly, US sports fans can compete against each other during March Madness, with supporters predicting against each other and the experts who will win through. Most major broadcasters have online tables showing fans’ standings. It’s fun.

Also, it is a massive loss for casinos because, outside of the Super Bowl, it’s the single biggest gambling event.

But way more important than fans or money is the players.

For these players, this could be their last chance to play competitive basketball. March Madness is often the culmination of their four-year college experience and even a culmination of their entire basketball career.

A few of these players will be drafted into the NBA, maybe they will come and play in Europe or go to Asia, but for the vast majority this was their moment to shine in front of an international audience.

The players get a college education for free, not getting hammered with fees, and they get to play in front of thousands of fans every week but they don’t get paid. They generate millions of dollars in revenue for the colleges but due to antiquated NCAA rules don’t get a financial reimbursement.

Even then, these are young players who have devoted everything to make it as a professional basketball player, and this was their last hurrah, a chance to have a game that would make them legends, a chance to take down a school that rejected them or get one over on a fanbase that has demonised them.

So while people lament the loss of top-class sport and discuss the options to salvage seasons, remember those at an amateur level who may well have been ready to have their five minutes of fame, those who in sporting terms, at least, have had their moment stripped away.