College basketball is, by nature, unadulterated craziness and this season has done nothing but reiterate that point.
A bunch of kids fresh out of high school play a sport in which a team could put together a solid season, but have it all wiped away with one loss in a conference tournament. A highly-seeded squad in the NCAA Tournament may get an unfortunate matchup in the Big Dance and get upset because some player from (insert school you’ve never heard of) can’t stop hitting threes.
It may not be the most exact method for determining a champion, but it’s a damn good time.
If you want to watch insanely talented athletes play basketball at a consistently high level, you watch the NBA. If you want to see chaos in action, you watch college basketball — and this season has had plenty of chaos.
Rather than one or two clearly dominant teams, like Kentucky last season or North Carolina in 2009, 10 teams have the potential to cut down the nets in Atlanta and claim the national title this year.
It seems like every time a new team gets on top, it stumbles.
Indiana has held the No. 1 spot more than any other team this season, but has fallen out of first place twice and currently sits at No. 3. Duke took hold of the No. 1 spot for four weeks before relinquishing it to Louisville in the middle of conference play. Louisville dropped its first game after earning the No. 1 ranking, only to be replaced by Duke. The Blue Devils also lost their first game as the top-ranked team in the nation and Michigan took over the top spot. That lasted a whole seven days before Indiana reclaimed the No. 1 ranking. Since then, Gonzaga, the only two-loss team left in the country, took over at No. 1.
This week’s conference tournaments have continued the absurdly entertaining aspects of the season, as a 20-loss Liberty team punched its ticket to the NCAA Tournament on Sunday by winning the Big South Conference title. The Flames are the second 20-loss team to ever reach the tournament.
So when a season such as this one comes along and parity runs the world of college hoops, the sport may miss out on a few viewers who want to watch a truly dominant team trot to a national championship. But for those of us who live for the surprises and upsets, this dogfight of a season has been a treat that represents the spirit of the sport.
Indiana's Victor Oladipo (4) dunks during the second half of an NCAA college basketball game against Ohio State, Tuesday, March 5, 2013, in Bloomington, Ind. Ohio State won 67-58. (AP Photo/Darron Cummings)
