A love letter to March Madness, the greatest postseason in American sports

The best postseason in American sports began Monday night with four quarterfinal matchups in the Atlantic Sun tournament. It will continue on Tuesday when three more conferences join the fray, and will roll on without suspension until a single group of coaches and players are crowned champions of the whole thing on April 8.

The first Thursday and Friday of the NCAA tournament are commonly referred to as the best days on the sports calendar. You won’t find any significant pushback here. Where you will receive some is if you’re among the unenlightened class who claim that college basketball is a sport where “nothing matters until March.”

This isn’t just misguided, it’s patently false. If anything, college basketball comes closer than any other major American sport to presenting a landscape where everything matters.

Take, for instance, this five-part example from last season:

Part I

On Jan. 6, 2018, a little-known senior named Tyrell Sturdivant hit a three-pointer just before the buzzer to lift Stony Brook to a 63-61 road win over Hartford in the second America East conference game for both. Sturdivant had attempted just one three-pointer in the three years before his senior season, and would finish his college career as 28.2 percent shooter from beyond the arc.

Part II

Hartford finishes the regular season with an 11-5 conference record, good for third place in the America East. One more win and they would have finished tied with a UMBC team the Hawks swept in the regular season. The America East tournament is played entirely on campus sites, with the better-seeded team hosting each game.

Part III

UMBC and Hartford each advance to the America East semifinals, with the second-seeded Retrievers reaping the benefit of homecourt advantage. In a game loaded with tension, UMBC eventually breaks away for a 75-60 triumph. Afterward, both head coaches make mention of the raucous home crowd playing a part in determining the winner.

Part IV

Four days later, UMBC pulls off a stunning upset against a Vermont team to which it had lost 23 games in a row. Jairus Lyles’ made three-pointer just before the buzzer sends the Retrievers to the NCAA tournament for just the second time in program history.

Part V

UMBC shocks the world and stigmatizes Virginia forever by taking down the No. 1 overall seed Cavaliers and becoming the first 16-seed in the history of the NCAA tournament to win a first round game.

If Tyrell Sturdivant doesn’t miraculously find his outside stroke for one split-second at the end of a seemingly meaningless game in early January, maybe Hartford is able to beat UMBC for third time thanks to the benefit of home court. Maybe Virginia is able to play through some early jitters and still easily handle the 16-seed that would have taken the sport occupied by UMBC in the real world. Maybe the Cavaliers would have found their footing after that, won at least three more games, and shed the stigma of being March chokers forever. Maybe the 2018-19 Virginia team would currently be discussed as the unquestioned favorites to win the national title.

Instead, UMBC — a program with a lifetime winning percentage of 39.7, one which has won just two conference titles in history and finished with single-digit wins in a season seven times since 2009 — is forever associated with success.

And Virginia — a program which is about to win its fourth ACC regular season championship in the last six years, which has been to two Final Fours and is currently poised to be a No. 1 seed in the NCAA tournament for a seventh time — is arguably more associated with failure than any other program in the sport. For the time being.

March’s generosity is matched only by its cruelness. And if you’re a UVA fan who has been treated cruelly, blame Tyrell Sturdivant.

The picture of what exactly America is has never been murkier. The conversations necessary to clear that picture up have never been more difficult to facilitate. Maybe this is why I find myself now, perhaps more than ever before, so drawn to college basketball’s postseason.

March Madness is America. Or at least my America.

It’s deeply flawed.

There are inherent disadvantages that a majority of the participants will need a significant dose of both skill and luck to overcome if they want to become nationally known and respected. For some, one night of bad luck will completely undo four months’ worth of hard work and overwhelming success. For these programs, the fact one failure led to their demise while others were allowed to fail four times as often and still achieve their ultimate goals will be an impossible pill to swallow. It’s not fair, and it’s never going to be fair.

It’s also more conducive to magic and excitement than anything in its realm.

Obtaining college basketball’s top prize is extremely unlikely for the vast majority of the 353 teams competing in Division I. At least it’s not impossible. At least the bottom-tier NET school that won its conference tournament gets the chance to prove itself on the sport’s biggest stage, and not inside a quarter-full stadium against a team that doesn’t really want to be there, in a game that, for all intents and purposes, has zero significance. At least when Loyola-Chicago upset Miami at the buzzer in the first round of the tournament a year ago, that wasn’t where the story ended.

This is the way it should be. Sure, some teams benefit from a head start, and others are dealing with unfair advantages they may not have earned, but at least nobody is disqualified before the race even gets started. Everyone has a shot at making a March memory.

I have an aunt who is a graduate of the University of Kentucky and as diehard a member of Big Blue Nation as you’re ever going to find. With the Wildcats relegated to the NIT in 2013, she began reading up on a team from her home city of Fort Myers that had begun to stir up some buzz. In the succeeding weeks, as Florida Gulf Coast won the Atlantic Sun tournament and then became the first 15-seed to ever advance out of the NCAA tournament’s opening weekend, “Dunk City” was all my aunt wanted to talk about.

Therein lies the other thing March Madness has that no other major American sport can claim. Whether it’s the school you graduated from, the school you grew up rooting for, or just the school that’s nearby, everyone has a team.

Every state in this country besides Alaska is home to at least one Division I basketball program. That means just about every American has a team in their general area they can support or claim as their own during March Madness. We are a species that is wired to connect, and maybe as a direct result, there’s something comforting about the feeling that we’re all in this together. On different teams, sure, but all a part of the same grander experience.

Turn on your television (or internet stream) at virtually any hour over the course of the next couple of weeks, and you’ll be privy to sports theater at its very best. Sure, all these teams have an ultimate goal of winning their respective conference championships and advancing to the NCAA tournament, but there’s something even larger at stake.

In each of these games, at least some of the players on the court are playing to keep their athletic careers alive. It’s survive and advance on multiple levels, and when the buzzer sounds, you can see the joy and the relief on the faces of kids who know they get to wake up the next morning and still be able to call themselves basketball players.

For the next 12 days we will be consistently bombarded by dream-fulfilling, career-ending, win-or-turn-in-your-jersey conference tournament action. All the elements that draw casual fans so completely into the first weekend of the NCAA tournament are inherent in each and every one of the 32 conference tournaments that will take place over the course of the next two weeks. Quite simply, it’s high drama you can’t find anywhere else.

It is exhilarating, it is cruel, it is rewarding, and it is unrivaled. Let the madness wash over you.