NCAA March Madness

By: Jack Motta, Zach Blakeslee

March  2019- Greenville New York Feature

This March marks another one of the NCAA basketball tournament which is one of the most watched televised programs in the world. As many as 5.6 million people tuned in to watch last year. Also, there is a tournament which is free to enter on ESPN, that, if you guess a perfect bracket, you can win one million dollars. Yes, you heard me right, the winner of Warren Buffet’s March Madness bracket challenge the he will pay you one million dollars. 

If you’re looking for teams to make an unsuspecting Cinderella run, consider Murray State, Saint Mary’s and Georgia State. Murray State would be the most likely out of the three, they are an 11 seed this year and have arguably one of the best players in the tournament, Ja Morant. He won MVP of the OVC, and he won the championship game against Belmont with 36 points. Murray State is only one of my predicted Cinderella stories, Saint Mary’s is another one. They play a weak Vilanova team in the first round who has been struggling all year, then the only really tough game would be the next round, against Purdue. But if they can beat them, they have a possible Tennessee team that has lost to Kentucky once, LSU, Kansas once and Auburn twice. They have won many close games to small schools

This year the frontrunner to win the entire tournament is Duke and for good reason. Zion Williamson and RJ Barrett have been showing off their amazing athleticism and basketball skill and NBA teams are already eagerly waiting for a shot at picking these two up during the draft. But if you don't want to jump on the Duke bandwagon, what teams should you follow? North Carolina, LSU, Kentucky, Purdue, and even teams such as Texas Tech have a decent chance at the tournament. Although North Carolina is in the running almost every year, this year they have already beat a stacked Duke team giving any people who don't want Duke to win, hope. Even though North Carolina has proven to have beaten Duke you cannot sleep on Purdue. Purdue has been historically great. They are in the Big Ten Conference and have the most Big Ten championships with 24 and in this season are 16-4 against conference rivals and are 24-9 overall with a perfect 15-0 at home. Although they were perfect at home they just made it to .500 away which might be their downfall in this tournament.