The madness is back and isn’t it wonderful. I never knew I would miss the madness this much, and I didn’t realize how much I would savor the madness in my mind once again. You may be thinking I have gone mad – and many of you probably already thought I was mad to begin with – but I’m talking about the March Madness that comes with college basketball.
Last year the NCAA tournament was canceled because of COVID, as were many things in our lives, but this past Thursday the 2021 edition of March Madness returned. And so far through the writing of this column, the madness has been a wonderful experience, along with being a bittersweet one at the same time. My bracket is already a mess through Sunday, and my heart is broken.
I had high hopes for the Volunteers of Tennessee and their chances in the tournament, and, as I have said often, it is hard to be a Tennessee fan and remain hopeful for a championship or, in the case of football, a winning season. The Vols fell in the first round with a dismal offensive performance, and once again my orange apparel is hard to wear in public.
While I am trying to get over that disappointment, there have been some entertaining game as Chicago Loyola has taken out the one-seeded Illinois, Oral Roberts took out two-seeded Ohio State, Abilene Christian took out three-seeded Texas, and North Texas took out a four seed in Purdue. Plenty of upsets, and that’s what I love about the tournament.
Oregon advanced because VCU was under Covid protocol, and, so far, that is the only game effected by the pandemic. The rest of the tournament should be fun as there is a lot of parity and that is why this is one of my most favorite sporting events. The next couple of weeks, hopefully, will be a lot of fun.
