By Nick Konotopskyj
Assistant Sports Editor
Professional sports give fans a chance to see the best players in the world. Although the same isn’t true with college sports, people are still fascinated with watching the best basketball schools in the country compete for a national championship.
In two weeks time, a college basketball champion will be crowned in the most grueling tournament in sports. The season starts out with over 300 schools, which get dwindled down to a bracket of 68, then, after one month of madness, a champion is determined.
The NCAA men’s college basketball tournament is one of the most anticipated sporting events of the year. Behind only the Super Bowl, March Madness produces the second highest amount of total bets, according to Las Vegas oddmakers, throughout the year. It even beats events such as the NBA Finals, Stanley Cup Finals and the Kentucky Derby.
St. Bonaventure puts an extra emphasis on its basketball team compared to other schools since it doesn’t have a football program (far and away the two most popular collegiate sports.) Even for a small Division I school like St. Bonaventure, the Bonnies were able to attract a large amount of fans, especially for the conference tournament in Brooklyn.
Then you look at the big schools like Duke, Kansas and Michigan State which consistently make the tournament year in and year out and go crazy for the biggest collegiate sporting month of the year –March.
Last Thursday, the NCAA tournament field was at 64 teams, then over the next four days, got cut down to 16 teams, which is where it stands right now. By the end of this weekend, only four teams will remain [a.k.a. “The Final Four”]. Last year, a seventh-seeded Connecticut Huskies squad hoisted the title in shocking fashion. So the question remains, who will win it all this year?
The team who came into the tournament with the best chance to win is the Kentucky Wildcats. Kentucky is the first major conference team to enter the tournament undefeated since the 1978 Indiana Hoosiers, which just happened to be the last team to go through an entire season undefeated.
Although Kentucky had a pretty easy conference schedule being in the Southeastern Conference (SEC), its first two wins in the tournament showed that it has what it takes to go 40-0 and cut down the nets on April 6 in Indianapolis.
Even though Kentucky is one of the biggest tournament favorites ever, there are some teams that could challenge its dominance. Some of these teams include Wisconsin, Arizona, Duke and Gonzaga.
Arizona is one of the most experienced teams left and might have the deepest team other than Kentucky. The “other wildcats” start four players that are at least six feet seven inches or taller. Size is also a strength of Kentucky, so if these teams met in the Final Four, it would be interesting to see which team could assert its will near the basket.
Wisconsin also brings a lot of experience to the table and if things go according to plan (which is a big assumption in March) it will meet Arizona in the Elite 8. It has player of the year candidate, senior Frank Kaminsky, who dominated the Big Ten this year from deep and on the block. Wisconsin and Arizona are easily the two hardest matchups Kentucky would face on its side of the bracket.
Duke is the next on the list and it brings a different element than other teams: small line-ups and three-point shooting. The Blue Devils start freshman player of the year candidate Jahlil Okafor who is coming off of a 26-point performance in their win over San Diego State. Duke doesn’t quite have the depth of Kentucky, but has a starting five that is as good as any in the country.
The last of the top challengers is Gonzaga. The Bulldogs have never made the Final Four, but this year is probably their best shot. Kyle Wiltjer, a former member of the Kentucky Wildcats, left the team last year after taking a lesser role with that team and now leads Gonzaga in scoring. The Bulldogs don’t defend very well, but they score 80 points per game. They are in the same region as Duke, so they wouldn’t have to see Kentucky until the championship.
Those are the five top teams that have the best chance at a championship, but Michigan State, Notre Dame, and North Carolina have an outside chance at making a big run. These teams aren’t as high up in the seedings, but have all gotten hot lately. Notre Dame beat North Carolina in the ACC championship game, and Michigan State lost in the Big Ten championship game in overtime to Wisconsin, showing how March is the most important time to be playing your best basketball.
This year’s NCAA tournament brings us a possibility of perfection, which is incredibly rare in the world of sports. Whether Kentucky is able to get it done or not remains to be seen, but if this weekend is anything like last weekend was, then prepare for multiple upsets.
