On Monday April 6th, the March Madness champion was crowned, the Michigan Wolverines. Being a heavy favorite during the tournament and a #1 seed coming into it, they dominated every opponent they faced. With them defeating UConn in the championship with a score of 69-63, they capped off a dominating tournament run. Before the championship there was the elite eight and the final four, let’s see how every team did and how their fans reacted to these losses and wins.
“Seeing Michigan win was nice, they have really been good all year long and were very deserving of it. I was rooting for Mizzou and SLU but obviously those didn’t work out, but seeing teams like Arizona and Illinois get to the final four was amazing,” junior Dom Campana said.
Campana, being a Mizzou and SLU fan, was very disappointed but the other local team, Illinois, succeeded in making it to the final four. They were led by Keaton Wagler leading the team in points, assists and steals per game during the regular season. He also earned All-Big Ten and All-American Honors, which is a very great achievement to obtain for the student-athlete.
“That UConn buzzer beater was so crazy to watch. Seeing him drain that from half court was just absolute insane work. Duke being the favorite from the start was dumb, they seemed good on paper but as the tournament went on, I’m surprised they got so far. My favorite team is Kansas and I had high expectations of them for this year but losing to St. John’s was an expected loss,” junior Carter Lickteig said.
UConn was definitely one of the most unfavored to make it to the championship game but after their crazy comeback in the elite eight against Duke, they were looked at differently. With guard Braylon Mullins hitting a buzz-beater three point from half court to win the game after a costly Duke turnover, it only made sense for them to make it to the championship game. From that shot with 0.4 seconds left, to going to the championship, really showed the passion and ‘underdog’ mentality that they had going into the late rounds, facing high tier competition.
The men’s March Madness tournament was once again, full of madness. With many upsets like Wisconsin losing in the first round and Florida losing to Iowa in the second round. We had another year of crazy college basketball to watch. If you enjoy watching basketball or not, everybody still tuned into a game, to either cheer for their local college or the college they went to (or going to). Now we look into other sports and even professional basketball with their playoffs starting very soon.
