By Dillon Jones

April 6, 2021

March Madness is back this year like it never left, and the upsets are as good as ever.

March Madness is the tournament to be in for NCAA College Basketball. Every year, there are wins and losses that upset teams that should have probably won those games. This year, there have been an absurd amount of upsets on some of the nation’s best teams.

Some of these upsets include No.15 Oral Roberts University beating No.2 Ohio State University in the first round and beating No.7 Florida University in the second round; No.8 Loyola Chicago University beating No.1 Illinois University; No.12 Oregon State University beating No.4 Oklahoma State University; and No.2 Iowa University losing to No.7 Oregon University, all also in the second round. More include No.13 Ohio University defeating No.4 Virginia University and No.14 Abilene Christian beating No.3 Texas University in the first round. These are not all of the insane upsets during the madness of March, but some of the most noticeable. 

A number of these upsets are joked to be intentional losses due to the NCAA not having the tournament last year and an attempt to bring viewership up and make up for the lost money. If this were to be the case, they would have perfected this goal as views and TV ratings were high. The tournament achieved all-time milestones, including all-time highs in the tournaments ¨first four¨ thanks to UCLA and Michigan State — both very popular schools — not normal to the ¨first four¨ games.

Heading into the championship game, it was expected to keep the viewership high, as it contained the nation’s two best teams, Gonzaga and Baylor. This failed as Baylor took a quick lead and held up for the entire game, losing most viewers by at least halftime. 

 Safe to say, even though last year was an off year for the Division 1 NCAA Basketball Tournament, the tournament was still amazing for the association and just as ‘mad’ as ever.