March Madness: It's Madness

For four straight days, three weekends in a row, all eyes are on the NCAA.

Eat. Sleep. Breath. Basketball

Between CBS, TruTV, TBS, TNT, the March Madness app, and NCAA.com, it is everywhere. There's no denying that.  Businesses on Thursday and Friday during the Field of 64 suffers tremendously as fans stream and pay more attention to the games than their actual work.

I even got in trouble (well, not trouble trouble) while working a few year's back when the business caught wind of me watching a game because of the amount of bandwidth that the streaming used. The games are addicting.

Eyes and fingers are glued to these games. A great play? Tweet about it. A horrible call? Tweet about it. The camera pans on an emotional fan too long? Meme it and plaster it all over social media. This could go on for almost 11 hours a day. We are bombarded by the games, for at least the first weekend anyway.

The games are played by the students.

Yet, it's the rest of humanity who are gambling on who will win potential matchups almost three weeks in advance. Then, if our picks go wrong, we're quick to judge and ridicule and take to social media to blast the team, the coaches, officiating, the other team.

I get it. We're emotional and are quick on the trigger enter (send) button. I'm guilty of it too. We don't let the kids play. Hell, even the refs are starting to get involved in outcomes (via calls or lack-thereof).

A main component of March Madness is the bracket. We're glued to the games to see if our guesses were right. While some fill out brackets for fun, a good number of people spend money to fill out a bracket in hopes of winning a lot of money. That means we're even more invested in the outcomes because we have a chance to make money.

There's a term that gets thrown around in March that can ruin everyone's bracket: Cinderella.

Cinderella is the nickname given to a team that "isn't supposed to be there."They are typically a lower-seeded team who are beating the bigger-named teams and busting everyone's brackets.

While some schools are mis-seeded, they have to play the teams in front of them, and you hope the team you picked wins. There will always be at least a 12-seed upsetting a 5 and 9 beating an 8. Middle Tennessee State won as a 12-seed over 5-seeded Minnesota, 9-seed Wisconsin beat 8-seeded Virginia Tech. Middle Tennessee State was viewed as a potential Cinderella, just like Vermont

This past weekend, during the first- and second rounds of the 2017 Tournament, we had a few minor upsets, but no buzzer-beating, bracket-busting games. If a low seed won on Thursday or Friday, most of them weren't going to win on Saturday or Sunday... right?

Wrong.

University of North Carolina was down late to Arkansas, and a late call/non-call turned the game around. 2-seed Louisville lost handily to 7-seed Michigan, 3-seed Florida State was destroyed by 11-seed Xavier by 20 points. The two biggest "upsets", or well surprises, were 9-seeded Wisconsin beating the overall number 1-seeded Villanova and 2-seed Duke losing to University of South Carolina, a 7-seed.

As a gambler, you're pissed.Your bracket is most likely busted.

As a basketball lover, you're thrilled because there are new teams involved and while they may not be a double digit seed, they are another form of a Cinderella.

Having the same people at the same dance year after year gets old.

Cinderella and gambling help make March go mad.

Can anyone actually sit through a college game in March and just enjoy it? Nope.

We all go a little bonkers in March