March Madness, the widely known NCAA college basketball tournament, is a big deal for sports fans and even casual enjoyers. Whether you keep up with college basketball or not, you can’t escape March without hearing something about the sport.

At Sahuaro, some students, teachers, and staff are huge fans of the tournament. A couple of teachers went as far as playing the games in their classrooms, and Mrs. Krieg even played the games in the library, especially when the University of Arizona was playing. This is a great time of year because it gives students and teachers a “break” in class and lets them bond over the sport.

A popular activity for the tournament is making a bracket, where people will predict which team will be the winner in each round.   Some analyze each team’s season and go based on stats, but others pick their favorite team based on prior knowledge or even pick the school with the cutest colors and mascot. It’s also common to gather with others and compare or compete with their brackets based on who predicted the most rounds, scores, or games correctly. Sometimes they’ll even bet.

This year at Sahuaro, Mr. Alan started a bracket competition among the teachers and staff. Mr. Alan got the idea from, “…other jobs that I’ve had. It’s just fun. Most of the guys want to do it. We have a handful of girls that are doing it too.” At the time, Mr. Alan said, “ I think I’m in 11th place right now out of 26. I believe Rocky Lane, Mr. Lane, is in first place right now.” The bracket is done on a website, and everyone picks their teams and keeps track of their bracket from there.

Mrs. Trujillo is a big fan of the tournament, rooting for the U of A. When she was in college, she’d go to basketball games, and she really enjoyed the environment. She said, “I keep up with all of the teams for my bracket, but I really only watch the U of A games.” Mrs. Trujillo misses none of the games and will even put them on in class. She looks at stats a little bit but goes off of feeling and guessing for her bracket. 

Mr. Lopez, also a U of A fan, keeps up with it as well and said, “I watch as many as I can the first weekend because it’s just really exciting to see them all as they’re going on. The second weekend I usually watch a little bit less, but then I come back the final four weekend.” Mr. Lopez sets up his bracket by using, “…a little bit of the seedings as well as their overall records, and then also kind of just pick some teams that are currently hot that I think that could upset other teams.”

The Coolidge sisters are also big fans of March Madness. Cassie and Carly both predicted UConn to win the tournaments, besides Cassie thought South Carolina would win the women’s tournament (and she was correct). They follow both but mostly keep up with the women’s tournament. Cassie chooses her men’s bracket based on teams she wants to win, and for women’s, she goes based on records.

On April 8th, the finals were played, and the University of Connecticut Huskies beat the Purdue Boilermakers 75-60. The winners of Sahuaro’s bracket were Mr. Lopez in first place, Mr. Haynes in second, and Mr. Wharam in third.

The Final Four games were held in Glendale, Arizona at State Farm Stadium, and while many teachers haven’t been to a game in person, they said they wanted to. Mrs. Trujillo said, “That is on my bucket list for sure – March Madness in Vegas.” 

However, 0ne teacher has gone to go to a game in person. Mr. Schmidgall, Sahuaro’s band teacher, got his education at the U of A and he was a member of the Pride of Arizona and the pep band. He traveled to the March Madness game in 2018 to cheer on the Wildcats, but unfortunately, they lost in the first round to the Buffalo Bulls. He said, “We played one game, got out in the first round, so that was kind of disappointing, but it was a really fun trip and fun experience.” He doesn’t keep up with the tournament as much anymore, but he still makes a bracket, only this time it’s based on which mascot would win in a fight. And of course, he’s still loyal to the U of A.

No matter what team you root for, every college basketball fan celebrates March because it brings madness and lets us bond over one of the greatest sports, basketball!