March minus the Madness

JACK JONES
STAFF WRITER

4/7/2025

The NCAA Division I men’s and women’s basketball tournaments, commonly known as March Madness, have been in full swing since late March. The tournaments are known for their intense rivalries and the unexpected upsets of high-seeded teams by lower-seeded ones fighting their way to a Cinderella story.

This year’s tournaments, however, have been called dull and lacking the “madness” that the month is known for. Is this the case? Has the tournament been boring? I personally agree that the tournaments have been lacking the excitement of past years. 

The men’s tournament kicked off on March 20 with the first-round games, which played out almost exactly as expected: the first two days of the tournament were lacking any major upsets, and no small school came swooping up to draw the attention as has happened in past years. 

The largest upset we have seen in the men’s tournament was 12-seed Colorado State defeating 5-seed Memphis. While a relatively large upset seed-wise, Colorado State was still favored to win going in and did just that. 

The same can be said for the women’s bracket, which also saw a distinct lack of upsets in the first round, with the closest perhaps being 10-seed Oregon defeating 7-seed Vanderbilt. However, both saw the vast majority of games go the way of the favored team, making it more difficult for fans to care outside of following their own team’s path through the tournament. 

The next rounds of the tournament did not improve in the excitement aspect, and at the time of writing, we have our final four for both women’s and men’s tournaments. The men’s tournament has all four 1-seeds competing for the Final Four: Florida, Auburn, Duke and Houston. The women’s is only marginally different, with three 1-seeds: UCLA, South Carolina and Texas. The only non-1-seed in this year’s Final Four is UConn’s women’s team as a 2-seed. 

This should, in theory, create some very competitive basketball, and both tournaments could really pick up intensity-wise in the Final Four. However, the lack of a true underdog or Cinderella stories has removed some of the fun that the tournaments are known for. 

Despite this, there have still been some fun moments. In the men’s bracket, there was the comeback by Florida against Texas Tech in the Elite Eight and a close game between Michigan State and Ole Miss that resulted in an MSU victory. In the women’s tourney, Paige Bueckers put up 31 points against the 1-seed USC to send UConn to the Final Four, and UCLA defeated LSU without their star center for the entire second quarter.

For local fans of Michigan and MSU, the tournament had its highs and lows. The men’s teams for both schools went quite far in the tourney: Michigan made it to the Sweet Sixteen before being defeated by 1-seed Auburn and Michigan State made it one round further into the Elite Eight before being met with a similar fate. 

In the women’s tourney, both teams only made it out of the first round as MSU lost to the 2-seeded NC State and Michigan fell to the 3-seeded Notre Dame.

Ultimately, the tournaments have had some high moments, but overall failed to meet the expectations set by previous years. This year’s tournaments have lacked both true underdogs like St. Peter’s in 2022 and explosive and exciting moments, such as last year’s women’s championship between Iowa and South Carolina. 

The Final Fours will have been played on Sunday, April 6 for the women and Monday, April 7 for the men.