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By: Josephine Buckley & Lilly Rayl 3-31-23
Swish! The ball soared through the air and the world seemed to stop for a moment. It glowed in the light as it landed in the hoop, not needing any rim. The crowd watched in pure happiness, and once the ball swished, they went wild. This was the bracket winner many had hoped for. This was the start of March Madness.
March Madness games this year were held in Dayton, Orlando, and California. It started on March 14th for the 2023 games. Many don’t know the history of the March Madness Brackets. The first NCAA bracket was with the first NCAA game in 1939, but there were only 8 teams at the time. According to Smithsonian, the first Bracket pool started in a bar when 88 people filled out a bracket and pitted them against one another. In 2018, brackets filled out online were in the ten million, but that still isn’t counting the paper brackets people filled out.
Brackets for students at EJHS mean a lot to them, as most of the time people don’t win anything. The start of a bracket could make or break your chance of winning. Here are some people’s wins/losses so far in the game. Kinley Butler’s bracket had around 8 wins and a lot of losses. She stated, “I’m feeling awful about my bracket so far. The biggest upset for me would have to be the Purdue game and I have absolutely no idea who will come out and win." Another interviewee, Gibson Bell, stated, “I had 20 wins and 47 losses. I’m feeling really bad about my bracket so far.” Another decent bracket was Aiden Williamson’s with 31 wins and 27 losses. They stated, “I think Virginia’s game was pretty upsetting, and FDU will surely go and take the lead.” However, students aren’t the only people doing brackets!
For national brackets, the last perfect bracket got busted after FDU beat the number one seed, Purdue. Now, about the teachers’ brackets at EJHS! Mr. Woodcock had his bracket with 50/50 for wins and losses, he is expecting Miami to come out and win it all. Another teacher, Mr. Norris thinks UCONN will come out with the win and he has 34 wins on his bracket so far. Mrs. Ayer also thinks UCONN will win. She has 33 wins and 30 losses on her bracket. The biggest upset on Mr. Woodcock and Mrs. Ayer's brackets was the FDU-Purdue game. Mrs. Myers had 33 wins and 27 losses in her bracket, but she correctly picked Penn State beating Texas A&M!
As exciting as brackets are, many people get upset over their favorite teams not making it far. According to EJHS, the biggest upsets were FDU vs Purdue, IU vs Miami, and Virginia vs Furman. However, according to NBC, the top 3 biggest upsets were Princeton vs Arizona State, Pittsburgh vs Iowa State, and Michigan State vs Marquette. As you can see, 2023 was one of the worst years for brackets.
It was a very hard year to get a perfect bracket. You have a 1 in 9.2 Quintillion chance of filling out a perfect Bracket! You are also more likely to become president, have an excruciating death by a vending machine, or win the Mega Million than fill out a perfect bracket! I hope you learned more about the upsets and brackets for 2023.
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