NCAA brackets were busted once again

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By Frankie Rizzo, Sports Editor

There’s a reason the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament is nicknamed March Madness, and this year is no exception. The national championship may have gone to tournament favorite Villanova, but don’t let that fool you. If anything, this year’s tournament contains more madness than years prior due to all of the improbable upsets.
There’s been an 11-seed in Loyola-Chicago make it to the Final Four, and 16-seed UMBC trouncing top seed UVa. in the second round was historic for multiple reasons. These upsets make good Cinderella stories, but hurt tremendously for people trying to predict a perfect bracket.
If anyone made a bracket this year, odds are they couldn’t predict the craziness happening, especially in the unpredictable south region. After the first two rounds, the south region saw the fall of their top four seeded teams, including No. 1 Virginia, a heavy favorite to win the whole tournament.
No bracket predicted a perfect Elite Eight this year, which featured one 11-seed, two 9-seeds, two 3-seeds, one 2-seed and two 1-seeds.
Even diehard college basketball fans couldn’t get this one right. Junior Drew Donohue joined a 60-plus person group for the tournament, where first place would go to the person who was the most accurate with their picks in the tournament.
“This is just so unfair,” Donohue said. “I spend my whole year watching and studying college basketball just for it to go to waste in March.”
A majority of the people who gave up on their brackets found themselves just looking for an underdog story to follow. Junior David Germain said he would love to see Loyola-Chicago cutting down the nets at the end of the year.
“I want to see Loyola-Chicago win not just to complete their Cinderella story, but to spite everyone else who has a high seed winning the whole thing,” Germain said.
March might be the month of stress and madness, but that’s what makes good basketball. Even if brackets are ruined, this year’s tournament will go down as one of the most interesting, unpredictable tournaments in history full of excitement and underdog stories.