(Tencent Sports NCAA Forward Commissioner Xu Mingnan from New Orleans, USA)
Since 2014, world-class billionaire Warren Buffett has made a bet that if anyone can guess the results of all 64 teams in the Bracket Challenge of the Crazy March Championship, a total of 63 matches in 6 rounds, he will issue a prize of 1 billion yuan to lucky fans.
After so many years, this bet has not been able to give birth to any lucky people except to help Buffett better promote his company and marketing.
What is the format of the Crazy March Game? Why is it so unpredictable that the cold is repeated? And what kind of team usually goes further? On Tournament National Finals Day, the article takes you on an in-depth look at the Crazy March Tournament.
The final four of March 2022 start in New Orleans
A unique format for single-game elimination
First, let's talk about college basketball and the March Crazy format. The U.S. college basketball season generally begins around October and ends in March of the following year. Different schools are divided into several small leagues, a bit like the NBA's East and West, but there are more than two.
More famous, such as Duke, north Carolina two derby teams in the ACC (Atlantic Coast League), Michigan, Michigan State, Ohio State, these Midwestern sports schools are located in the Big Ten (Big Ten League), or Kentucky, Florida, Alabama where the SEC (Southeast Conference). During the regular season, the team spends most of its time taking turns home-and-away games with rivals in the same league, with occasional cross-league matches.
This league schedule plays roughly in early March of the following year, when each league decides its own internal champions based on cumulative results, and the team's "regular season" task is completed, followed by March Madness, the so-called "playoffs," in which everyone competes for a national championship.
Crazy March is a tournament and also an invitation system. Based on the results of various schools across the country that season, the organizers will select 64 strong teams (68 to be precise, and interested friends can search for First Four on their own). The organizers will divide the 64 teams into 4 divisions, 16 teams in each division, and the 16 teams in each division will be given 1-16 seeds based on their records and squad strength. It is worth noting that these four divisions will try to be assigned to the same level, for example, the four strongest teams in the 64 teams will be divided into the 1st seed in each division, and so on.
2022 Mad March official Bracket
The 16 teams in each division will play a single-game knockout tournament based on seeding. That's why Crazy March is crazy, as soon as you lose a game, you immediately go home, completely without the concept of group stages and knockouts. From the first day the team arrived, the knockout rounds began.
After four rounds of knockout rounds, the 16 teams in each division are the champions of their divisions and become part of the Final Four. Then in the last week of March or the first week of April (last weekend), Final Four's four teams compete in a single knockout match, and the national championship is born.
The unique single-game knockout format of Crazy March is a major reason for its unpopularity. The biggest dark horse of march this year, Saint Peter's University, the No. 15 seed in the East Side, has defeated the No. 2 seed Kentucky (AD, Downs, Booker, the alma mater of the stars), the No. 7 seed Murray State (Morant's alma mater), and the No. 3 seed Purdue University, three times on the gram.
Saint Peter's beat Murray State to advance to 'Sweet 16'
If you sum it up in hindsight, this team plays in a unique way, using a blue-collar big center with a lineup of four little fast defenders and having an oppressive defense at the expense of the number of fouls. I watched Kentucky and Purdue play against them, and both teams didn't find a good way to deal with the opponent's crazy push until the end of the game.
In the NBA playoffs, we often hear coaches and players say after winning or losing big scores, "This is the playoffs, and the next game is going to be a whole new game." This sentence is not wrong at all, because in the NBA, everyone plays 7 innings and 4 wins, and as the series deepens, players, coaches, and video analysts of both teams will have more information to study opponents and see tricks. There are not many examples here, the simplest 15 years finals, Warriors coach Kerr put Iguodala in the starting lineup to play "death five", the series situation was reversed.
In contrast, in Crazy March, the schedule is tight, and from the time you know who the opponents in the next round are, to the start of the game, there is simply not so much time to prepare. Many times, the coach may not find a way to target the opponent until the last few minutes of the game, but is unable to return to the sky. Moreover, after all, college players are different from professional players, and even if they find tactics, it is unknown whether they can adjust and execute in a short period of time.
Dark Horse Saint Peter's was eventually eliminated by the University of North Carolina in the fourth round, and I personally believe that there are two reasons, one is that the University of North Carolina does have a better lineup, and the tactical literacy is high and can be executed. Another one, after three rounds of matches, the coaching staff has enough information to do targeted tactics, rather than just playing on the spot.
In college basketball, there is a team that has always been a dark horse regular, and the next big is Syracuse University (Anthony's alma mater). The killer of this team is their joint defense throughout the field. In today's small ball era, joint defense is used less, and college teams generally do not spend a lot of time to study how to break joint defense. And because the college tournament is a national invitation system, some teams may not play a game with Syracuse for many years, and they simply can't adapt to their opponents' routines in one game.
Syracuse University uses joint defense in competitions
Of course, every time Syracuse meets its two big brothers from the same league (ACC), North Carolina and Duke, it does not have the upper hand, and the reason is very simple, everyone is in a division, once or twice a year, knowing that the other is not dead.
In any case, this year's Four Four teams are all veteran teams, and none of them are dark horses. The derby between Duke and North Carolina will be forever recorded in history.
What types of teams typically go further?
Compared with the NBA, the number one seed in college basketball has a much higher failure rate. In college basketball, although the No. 1 seed is only once out of the first round, it is not uncommon for the No. 1 seed to be out of the second or third round. These teams came with the hopes of the fans and the teachers and students of the whole school, and the aura of the No. 1 seed, but they fell into the sand and returned disappointed.
In the usual way, high-seeded teams, especially those with potential rookies in the NBA Lotto zone (like dukes with Zion Williamson and R.J. Barret in 19 years), are given high hopes. But in fact, these teams really won the championship, even if it reaches the final four, not many.
First of all, talk about NBA scouts when evaluating the prospects of player drafts, usually look at two factors: that is, combat strength and potential. In college, the average junior/senior athlete is more effective and has better basic skills and tactical qualities after polishing, but it also means that many of their talents have been developed and cashed in and displayed in the competition.
Players who are generally placed in a high position by scouts must not only have high combat strength, but also need high potential, whether it is basketball IQ or physical talent. Even many players with good talent, that is, not high combat strength, will be predicted to be placed in the high order. The reason is simple, the NBA team to choose a high-ranking player, not to need the player to build a great achievement in the first season, but to see if they can through a professional training team, the player to develop into the core of the future team.
Back in college, potential is not directly synonymous with strength. The team that has the future lotto show just has one, not fully polished, future star. Many of these players are freshmen and sophomores, and when they meet teams led by junior/seniors, their tactical execution, and even their basic skills, can be left behind. If their talent can't crush the opposing team's defense, they can't turn those hopes and expectations into victories.
For example, I watched this year's West Zone No. 1 seed Gonzaga lose to No. 4 seed Arkansas, and The No. 1 seed Arizona in the Southern Zone lost to Houston. In the match between Gonzaga and Arkansas, Arkansas carefully designed tactics against Gonzaga's star interior line, freshman, quasi-winner hot candidate Chet Homegren, forced him into foul trouble early, and finally Gonzaga made a random shot and was unable to return to the sky.
Homegren got into foul trouble in the game
In the game where Arizona lost to Houston, several of Houston's senior interior players, although not dominant in height, dominated the frontcourt rebounds through excellent card positions and awareness. Although not as strong on paper as top seed Arizona, he eliminated his opponents through a less exciting defensive and second scoring battle.
Here is a brief review of some of the luxurious teams in history. First of all, let's talk about Duke in 2019, if you don't know about that Duke at that time, you've at least heard of the core players on the team. Zion Williamson, RJ Barrett, Cam Redish, three top high school players when you are recruited by coach K together, forming a luxurious star lineup.
In recent years, Duke university has followed the tradition of "One and Done", in which the old K coaches rely on their charisma to attract talented high school players, and then after a year at Duke, they successfully send them into the profession. However, there are two problems with this model, the first is that the core squad of the team is reshuffled year after year, and it is difficult to establish tacit understanding. The second is that the team simply does not have time to cultivate any other players, resulting in poor positions outside the star players, not to mention the depth of the squad.
The three freshmen failed to even bring Duke, the top seed of the year, to the final four. In the second round of 32 into 16, they almost lost to the UCC (Central Florida) University led by the current NBA first height Tacko Fall, the game was won and lost in the last minute, the whole game was weak in the height of The Duke was beaten to pieces, until the last two Bright Planets barely passed. Unfortunately, in the 8-in-4 game, michigan State University, which is dominated by veterans, finally sent this "dream team" home with experience and a stable rhythm in the second half.
Williamson and Tucker Fore in the Mad March arena
Let's talk about the University of Kentucky in 2015. Kentucky was also led by a group of star-level freshmen, and even before entering the tournament, the team won all the regular seasons and did not lose. With this pride, the team was seen as the biggest favorite to win the championship.
In that team, there was Downs, Devin Booker, who later became an All-Star. There are also Cauley Stan, Trey Lyles, the rookies around the lotto zone. However, as mentioned earlier, the NBA draft was chosen for potential, and it turns out that the team that selected Towns and Booker did not look away. But these players didn't have the delicate technical and leadership skills they have today in college, and everything was a little rough.
There are many teams in history that made history in the regular season but broke through in the playoffs, and here are not examples, the most recent time it can be said that the Warriors, who won 73 and lost 9, lost to the Cavaliers in the Finals. Overall, not losing in the regular season is a good thing, a new record, but not entirely a good thing. Losing allows the team to expose some problems earlier, make adjustments, leave the knife on the blade, and kill the four sides in the playoffs.
Kentucky, who won the regular season, fell on the stage of the crazy March semifinals after his 38-game winning streak. They were defeated by the University of Wisconsin, led by a large number of juniors and seniors. The team's leaders were Frank Kaminsky and Sam De Cole, who has now faded out of the league, and the team relied on a steady, slow-paced half-court attack that dragged down Kentucky's talent and their dreams of winning the championship.
In 2015, Kentucky and Wisconsin met in the semifinals of the Tournament
That year's outstanding performance also directly helped Kaminsky improve his draft prospects, and he was finally selected by the Hornets with the No. 9 pick. Decker was also successfully selected by the Rockets in the 18th place.
However, times have changed, downs and Booker, who lost that year, have long become league-level starmen, while Kaminsky can only be a bench rotation in the Suns, and Decker has gone to Turkey to pan for gold. This, perhaps also a living example, reveals the difference between combat power and potential.
Learn about the mindset of players who are about to enter the pro league
Basketball stars are also ordinary people, and playing basketball is also his profession. It may be a hobby for us to play basketball, but for these college players, entering the professional league is equivalent to graduating and looking for a job, and Crazy March is a good "interview" opportunity for them.
As mentioned earlier, players such as Kaminsky who directly increased their draft expectations through crazy March, of course, there are also many players who have performed poorly in Crazy March and whose prospects have plummeted. But in any case, this is a stage of world attention, and when the players are in the spotlight, facing dozens or hundreds of scouts everywhere on the sidelines, the mentality will certainly change.
The first players who have the most impact are those who can enter the NBA with the edge of the ball, but there is no guarantee. I personally had the privilege of working out at the same gym in the summer of 2019 with two NBA players who were later selected at the beginning of the final round of the first round, and we had a brief chat about what we would think in the Crazy Three Arena.
They actually think about a lot of things, of course they want to lead the team to win the championship, of course they want to win the championship at the same time to be able to improve the data, increase the attention. They will also worry about accidental injuries in the game, in short, there will be many factors that will make them not as attentive and unrestrained as usual when they are crazy.
Here, in fact, from the perspective of ordinary people, it is also very easy to understand them, you are in the last semester of your senior year of college, is it a mind to brush the grade point GPA, or by the way to find a job, ponder about the job or graduate school?
Being injured in a crazy three game is a player's nightmare. You could argue that there are people like Irving who are basically absent from the team due to injury but are still selected as champions, but this is indeed a minority. In some years, the title was almost determined by talent, Griffin of '09, Owen '11, Simmons '16, Williamson '19. Whether these players are injured or injured, or whether they are upset or not, they will not shake the identity of the champion at all. Ben Simmons even didn't play Crazy March because of his poor grades at LSU that year, and bluntly said that he wanted to rush into the NBA and didn't want to waste time in college.
Compared to these, we can cite more players whose injuries have affected their draft prospects and even their careers. For example, in 13 years, Louisville player Kevin Will unfortunately broke his leg in a game, and later chose to play overseas after recovering from injury. For example, Michael Porter Jr., who was injured in college, almost fell out of the lottery from the quasi-winner. For example, Bol Bol, who was selected by the Nuggets, was invited to the "little green house" that symbolized the potential stocks of the lotto on the night of the draft, but waited until the 44th pick in the second round to be selected.
2013 University louisville injured player Kevin Will
Having said all that, it's not that players will play on the pitch, I'm sure they'll still give their all for the championship, but behind these efforts, their mentality will become complicated and they will make some plans for their future careers.
Finally, with regard to the example of crazy threes improving the draft prospects, you may wish to pay attention to Caleb Love, the player who led the University of North Carolina to the final this year, who was originally a prospect that hovered in the middle of the second round, and believed that the experience of leading the team to the final (or winning the championship) would add a lot of points to the defender with excellent scoring ability.
These are some of my personal summaries of college basketball over the years, and March Madness is still a game that is difficult to predict and very random. Anyway, hopefully this article will give you a better understanding of March Madness and the charm of college basketball together.