After three weeks of upsets, controversial calls and nail-biting games, the Duke Blue Devils came out as the winner of the NCAA March Madness Tournament on April 6.
Although Duke was ranked No. 1 in the South, the biggest story going in to the tournament was the No. 1 Kentucky Wildcats’ unbeaten record from the Midwest. Kentucky was the 19th team in the league’s history to enter the tournament undefeated. Although only seven of the 19 teams actually won the tournament, many students still chose Kentucky as the winner of this year’s tournament.
According to a poll of 50 students conducted by the Falcon, 34 percent of them predicted that Kentucky would win the tournament.
“I chose Kentucky to win, like most people, because I felt that they were talented and dominant to not get beaten by any other team,” sophomore Kushagro Bhattacharjee said.
Other students picked underdog schools to win to win the tournament. For example, sophomore Gautham Arunkumar chose the Wisconsin Badgers because he believed that their tournament experience and veteran leadership would allow them to win the championship.
“With [center] Frank Kaminsky, the Badgers deserved to win it all,” Arunkumar said. “I think he might even retire as the greatest basketball player of all time.”
While hardly anyone picked the correct champion, the Duke Blue Devils, some predicted the correct upsets and came close. Junior Noah Quanrud was one of the 0.4 percent in ESPN’s Tournament Challenge who correctly picked the Kentucky Wildcats, the Wisconsin Badgers, the Michigan State Spartans and the Duke Blue Devils to be in the Final Four.
Quanrud said he based his picks simply on who he thought would win each individual matchup in the bracket. He did not think about teams’ past but rather which team was better just before the tournament.
Michigan State, seeded 7th going into the tournament, was one of the surprising teams. Quanrud chose the Spartans because of their coach’s, strong record in the tournament. Their coach, Tom Izzo, is 46-17 in the tournament, and he made it to seven Final Fours and won a championship, all with Michigan State.
Michigan State was not the only team that had a successful tournament. Many of the teams that made it far in March Madness had talented players on their team. Many of these players may be selected into the NBA and perform well in the league.
“Jahlil Okafor [of the Duke Blue Devils] has an NBA ready body and skill set,” sophomore Joshua Deng said. “Karl-Anthony Towns [of the Kentucky Wildcats] and [freshman] Myles Turner [of the Texas Longhorns] have NBA length and athleticism but are not as skilled yet.”
With many upsets, an undefeated team’s loss and a close championship game, this year’s March Madness was one of the most exciting tournaments in years.
A more accurate bracket [for me] would have been nice,” Arunkumar said. “[But] it reminded me why I love watching basketball.”