DEREK SEDAM
Staff Writer
After months of speculation, anticipation and prediction, 64 college basketball teams will finally start the Big Dance.
March Madness and the NCAA Tournament starts today with 16 games throughout the afternoon and evening, and another 16 on Friday.
For many, this exciting event is a way of life for a few weeks. Businesses are expected to lose $4.7 billion dollars due to lost wages and productivity from employees calling in sick to watch the tournament or watching online at their desks.
For students and faculty at Pepperdine, this means sick days and skipping class to watch the best games becomes a way of life the first few rounds of the tournament.
“The first two rounds of the tournament is practically a four-day holiday,” said junior Matt Poland. “When a game is on, my giant television will be. It’s Man Law.”
Although the Waves didn’t make the tournament this year, students have their teams to cheer on. Most find it tough to find a balance between class and their allegiances when the Madness begins.
“No promises on going to classes or doing homework these next two weeks,” junior and Clemson fan Will Cousins said. “I will be sitting on my couch and neglecting my responsibilities, but its OK, March Madness is upon us.”
With the art of missing the right class also comes the selection of the perfect bracket. The uniqueness of selection methods and the discussions held behind them can be almost as fun as watching the games.
Junior Brenden Rhead can only be described as a college basketball nut and huge Duke fan. When not watching college basketball or writing on Duke message boards, Rhead is getting his bracket ready for when the Dance commences.
“I pick based on every factor I can think of — matchups, location, coaching, and just the it factor that some teams seem to have besides picking Duke to win at all every time,” Rhead said. “If the Blue Devils make it to the Sweet 16, my professors will just have to accept that I’m going to Phoenix to watch them play.”
Others just improvise and know that luck is the X-factor.
“A semi-educated guess is good enough for me,” Poland said.
Most students like to up the stakes and include a wager in their Facebook bracket groups. This year CBS, who is sponsoring the Facebook competition, is giving out more than $10,000 worth of prizes to members who have the best brackets.
Similar companies like ESPN, Yahoo! and Fox Sports use the same format in which millions of people participate every March. Smaller companies use the Facebook challenge to promote their products. 310 Motoring and hip-hop star The Game gave away tickets to last year’s Final Four for the bracket group member who had the top score after the Elite Eight.
“I won over $250 my senior year of high school but haven’t been so lucky since,” Poland said.
This year’s tournament marks the first this decade that Pepperdine’s own West Coast Conference has received three bids to the field of 64. University of San Diego upset Gonzaga in the WCC Tournament final to receive the automatic bid a team gets for winning a conference tournament.
The Bulldogs and Saint Mary’s, who both were ranked in the top 25 throughout parts of the season, received one of the 34 at-large bids. All three teams face tough opening round opponents on their way to becoming a Cinderella sleeper.
The 13th-seeded Toreros go up against towering 7-foot-3-inch NBA prospect Hasheem Thabeet and the always dangerous Connecticut Huskies. An upset here would be nothing short of a miracle, but in the WCC tournament USD pulled up two upsets against the Gaels and Bulldogs and is one of the hottest teams heading into the tournament.
Gonzaga drew a disappointing seventh seed and will face off against a Davidson Wildcat team that hasn’t lost since last year and finished 23-0 in their conference. Davidson sophomore Stephen Curry lights it up from all over the floor, averaging 25 points while shooting over 43 percent from the three.
If the Zags want to keep dancing, they’ll have to knock off Georgetown and Wisconsin back-to-back to reach their first Elite Eight under Head Coach Mark Few.
The Gaels come in as a No.-10 seed, and an upset against the No.-7 seed Miami Hurricanes looms large for the team who was nationally ranked most of the season, but sputtered going only 3-3 down the stretch of conference play. A second-round match-up against Texas would give Saint Mary’s point guard Patty Mills a chance to go up against D.J. Augustin, providing one of the better one-on-one match-ups in the tournament.
With the amount of games in the next few weeks, expect small class sizes and the occasional silent fist pump from a student watching the games online. The end of the college basketball season captures and holds the nation’s attention like nothing else throughout the year.
“I love picking and watching the underdogs win,” Cousins said. “They play with so much heart and emotion, and that is what this tournament is all about. That and me getting to relax a little bit more than I should.”
03-20-2008
