The Madness of March Madness 2023

Written By: Gabriella Levi and Emmerson Edwards

Most basketball fans love March due to the competitive games of March Madness! The NCAA men's basketball tournament consists of 68 top teams to begin. The tournament lasted 3 weeks in total, leaving many people on the edge of their seats. During this year's tournament there were major upsets like Purdue and Fairleigh Dickinson. Purdue was ranked number 1 in the bracket and Fairleigh Dickinson was sitting at 16. When they played, everyone was expecting Purdue to crush Fairleigh Dickinson but they let their guard down too much and let their ego become too big. This caused Purdue to fall and lose the game by 5 points to the underdog team. Overall throughout the whole tournament there were a total of 8 major upsets that happened.

During the beginning of March Madness anyone interested can make a bracket with all the teams and who they think the winner of each game is gonna be. The brackets are different for everyone because everyone has different thoughts on who is going to win the whole tournament. At ThunderRidge, many students made these brackets and got interviewed about their brackets. Drew Henry (10) had Texas and Arizona making it to the championship. Drew, along with many other students, were not expecting things to turn out how they did! He said “My bracket was so bad this year but because of the big upsets, overall I didn’t do too bad in my bracket pool.” 

We asked 25 students if they had Purdue or Fairleigh Dickinson in their original bracket and everybody picked Purdue. This shows how upsetting it was! Sloan Schilling (10) had Uconn and Alabama in the championship bracket. He also had Uconn winning the whole tournament, and he was right! “ I was so surprised that I actually had it right, everyone told me I was crazy by putting Uconn winning the whole thing.”

Overall March Madness is a great sporting event that happens every year causing people to have a ton of fun and get really competitive. If you have never created your own bracket you definitely should next year! 

Courtesy of NBC Sports                         Photo Credits to AP News