

The upsets were celebrated in my work Slack. In the early 1980s, it was given a moniker by sportscaster Brent Musberger that it’s often associated with today: March Madness. While people generally expect the top seeded teams to win, the adrenaline rush comes from the major upsets, also known as the “Cinderella stories”. Teams are pre-seeded based on their performance in the regular season in four regions (1 - 16 each) where the seeding largely tilts the outcome of the earlier matchups.ĭue to the fact that you only need one game to advance, the tournament’s appeal comes largely from its unpredictability, where lower-seeded teams can muster incredible single performances to knock out the top seeds. The NCAA Tournament happens every March, a single-elimination tournament designed to crown the champion in Men and Women’s college basketball.

They weren’t even expected to go to the second round of the tournament.īut the Terps, before this loss, were on the precipice of spinning a narrative that was commonly celebrated in the NCAA Tournament: The narrative of the underdog. No, they were absolutely not expected to win this game. The Maryland Terrapins, my beloved alma mater, were crushed at the hands of the Alabama Crimson Tide in the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament. This past Monday, for the first time in almost two years, I felt true pain.
