March Madness 2023: Takeaways
It’s been almost one week since the final March Madness game that crowned the University of Connecticut as NCAA basketball champions for the fifth time in 25 years. With a final four that shocked many, including unexpected underdog appearances from UMiami, SDSU, and FAU, this year’s tournament was definitely chaotic. So let’s look back and analyze some of the main takeaways we can draw from 2023’s competition.
First and foremost, nothing is guaranteed anymore in college sports. From Fairleigh Dickinson dominating Purdue in their first-round game and then the defending champion Kansas Jayhawks losing to Arkansas the very next day, it was clear things would not go as predicted from the beginning. First, 15-seed Princeton ousted two-seed Arizona and locked in its first Sweet 16 spot in 56 years. Then, Furman had its first appearance in the tournament and beat fan favorites Arizona with 2.14 seconds left in the first round. ¾ of the Final Four were fifth seed or lower, powerhouse teams were beaten out quickly, and underdogs clawed their way through game after game.
It’s not only in college basketball that we see unsuspecting long-shot teams making their mark. Just yesterday, the Quinnipiac University Bobcats beat the ever-dominating University of Minnesota in the Frozen Four of NCAA Ice Hockey. Days before, they beat out the University of Michigan. Quinnipiac has never won the NCAA tournament before and has only made the Frozen Four twice prior to this year.
What can we learn from this? First, don’t ever count out a single team.
Another vital lesson from March Madness this year is that a team can never lean entirely on only one player. A prime example of this is Purdue and their 7’4 center Zach Edey. An incredibly gifted player, Edey won Big Ten Player of the Year for 2023 and is the 55th player in Purdue history to reach 1,000 points as a Junior. Many expected that he would act as some magical wall, blocking any shot from an opposing team. However, on opening night against Fairleigh Dickinson, even though Edey led all scorers with 21 points, Purdue shot only 35.8% from the field and lost 63-58. Their defensive core struggled a lot in the earlier season, and whether it was nerves or circumstantial, the team admitted to leaning on Edey a little too much.
There were many highlights from 2023’s games. For example, SDSU beating FAU 72-71 at the buzzer, SDSU making it to the championship game for the first time in their program’s history, the victory of lower seeded teams over Purdue, Duke, Kansas, Arkansas, etc.
2023’s March Madness was an absolute whirlwind, filled with unexpected victories, heart-wrenching losses, and overall changing the way everyone views the tournament and its possibilities. Nobody will forget these games, and I suspect they will be a topic of conversation for years to come.
Congratulations UConn!