Embracing the Madness
We'll say it: March Madness is fun.
Dear Readers,
The sports news that we’ve chosen to highlight in the past few weeks has been fairly dour. From the baseball lockout to Ukraine and back a couple of times, fun has been in short supply. So this week, we’ve decided to give you something on the lighter side and talk about March Madness—and why we enjoy watching, writing, and thinking about sports in the first place.
Before we get into that, though, a quick programming note. News broke recently that Brittany Griner, one of the most visible stars in the WNBA, is being held in Russia after Russian authorities allegedly found cartridges of hashish oil in her luggage, which is punishable in Russia with up to 10 years in prison. (Another reason that Russia is bad.) This week, the Russian government announced that Griner’s detention, which began in mid-February, has been extended through the middle of May.
There is justifiable suspicion in the U.S. that the Russians are holding Griner for politically-motivated reasons, and although we considered writing about the situation this week, we decided to hold off, since Griner’s family and the U.S. government have both indicated that further politicizing the situation might hurt their chances of securing Griner’s release through diplomatic negotiations. This seems like a pretty reasonable concern, so instead, we’ve decided to provide you with some well-sourced updates as this situation continues, one of which you can read here.
And now, on to something more fun!
-Ian and Calder
March is for the Underdogs
We are not “fans” of college basketball, exactly. Between the two of us, we maybe caught the equivalent of one total regular-season game this year—including men’s and women’s games.
Still, over the past few days—like every year—we’ve been tuning into March Madness to watch schools like “Creighton” and “Saint Mary’s” (apparently the one in California) go toe-to-toe with perennial basketball powerhouses like Kansas and Kentucky. Of course, the basketball is of a much lower quality than the pros, and we’re not particularly invested in any of the individual teams (though Calder’s best friend in first grade, Will Rayman, did make an appearance during one of Colgate’s annual first-round exits a few years ago). Yet we can’t take our eyes off the action.
Admittedly, part of our fascination with the tournaments—O.K., a significant part of it—has to do with the gambling. For about as long as the tournaments have been around, people have been betting on the outcomes, trying in vain to predict the unpredictable. With 64 teams in the first round of a single-elimination style tournament, putting together a bracket is essentially guesswork, and it’s more or less guaranteed that all of the “bracketology” research that you do beforehand will be for naught within the first two rounds. Still, it creates a rooting interest in basically every game.
But the thrill of March Madness gambling is really only incidental to the real source of the tournaments’ excitement, which is that they’re among the few sporting events where the unexpected does still happen—and with some frequency. As professional sports have slowly completed their transformations into multi-billion dollar industries, complete with analytics staffs straight out of McKinsey, a creeping sense of inevitability has taken hold: the richest teams almost always end up the most competitive, and the shallower-pocketed teams make peace with their place at the bottom of the standings. (The two of us have recently developed an all-consuming fascination with Formula 1 auto racing thanks to the Netflix series “Drive to Survive”—which has earned the official Southpaw stamp of approval—and Formula 1 is a prime example of how a team’s finances determine their performance. But anyway, we digress. Just watch the show.)
College basketball certainly is not immune to this dynamic, but the structure of the March Madness tournaments goes a long way toward leveling the playing field.
On Thursday, for example, a school from Jersey City called Saint Peter’s played their first game in the men’s bracket. Despite the fact that both of us live quite near to Saint Peter’s, we have never heard of this place. They were in the tournament, and seeded 15th, by virtue of winning their conference tournament, the MAAC. This is their gym:
They drew Kentucky in the first round, a No. 2 seed and a popular pick to win the entire tournament. Kentucky boasts multiple NBA prospects and a famous coach in John Calipari. They play here:
Every year, Kentucky spends twelve times more money on their men’s basketball program than Saint Peter’s does. Saint Peter’s leading scorer looks like a future basketball blogger. He quite possibly is.
With all of this windup, you probably know how this ended. Saint Peter’s pulled off the upset, first forcing overtime and then defeating Kentucky 85-79.
This was a remarkable upset, and in terms of the gap between programs’ respective budgets, there’s a case to be made that it was the most significant in the history of the men’s tournament. It was also only one of the many surprising outcomes in both the men’s and women’s tournaments thus far. To sweeten the deal, Saint Peter’s pulled off another upset on Saturday, defeating Murray State to advance to the Sweet 16.
With upsets like these, we get to remember that sports are, sometimes, very good. Every year we get introduced to new characters, all of whom are truly just kids, leading their teams to accomplishments that few overpaid pundits thought they could reach. We see players crying on the court, giving their all in what is, for many of them, their final chance to participate in organized sports. Everyone can associate with that feeling of loss, of being part of some sort of team or organization and then… not being anymore.
So for now, we’re enjoying the madness. We’ll go back to being grumpy when it’s done.
RODNEY’S ROUNDUP
Do you want to read about . . .
. . . the NCAA’s half-assed effort to address disparities between the men’s and women’s March Madness tournaments? “What's changed since NCAA's inequity failings were exposed during last year's tournament?” by Henry Bushnell in Yahoo! Sports (March 14, 2021).
. . . a cushy deal for the NFL’s most notorious abuser? “Deshaun Watson to the Browns is a squeamish blockbuster, but a blockbuster nonetheless,” by Adam Kilgore in The Washington Post (March 19, 2021).
. . . Lia Thomas and the latest chapter in the debate over transgender athletes? “Lia Thomas’s swimming is getting swamped in others’ fears” by Sally Jenkins in The Washington Post (March 15, 2021).