On my living room wall is a small, orange felt banner with “SYRACUSE” proudly displayed across the top. The swatch of felt commemorates the Orangemen’s 2003 run to the Final Four and national championship. It lists every score of every game during their impressive 2002-03 season in which they went 30-5 in the season. The final play of their season stands out to me the most – Hakim Warrick’s block on Kansas’ Michael Lee in the closing seconds to secure Jim Boeheim’s first ever championship.
Since then, I’ve accrued plenty more March Madness memories, especially since I started college and have the entire first week of the tournament off school (hello spring break!) It’s safe to say I love this time of year, and here are my 64 reasons why.
- Charles Barkley commercials
- Charles Barkley
- Watching games in my boxers
- One Shining Moment montage after the final game
- The POTUS’ bracket
- The Shockers (better luck next year!)
- Shaka Smart (tough way to go out, coach)
- Revising your bracket three or four times to get it just right
- Predicting an upset
- Buzzer-beaters
- Buzzer-beaters in overtime
- Buzzer-beaters in double overtime
- The moment you realize how busted your bracket is two hours into the tournament
- Clark Kellogg’s voice
- The pan-shot of a pep band before commercial break
- Papa John’s commercials sans Peyton Manning
- Perennially good Jesuit schools (see: Xavier, Marquette, ‘Zags)
- Little-known players taking over games
- The sudden proliferation of university apparel around town
- Rooting for a team you didn’t know existed at the beginning of the week
- Discount televisions, pizzas, and home furniture
- Basketball-themed monuments of Coke and Pepsi twelve packs in the grocery stores
- Trying to sound out Mike Krzyzewski
- The No. 1 seed going down
- The CBS tune (da-da-da-da-da-daaaaaaa-daaa-daaaa)
- Super fans/truant college students in ridiculous costumes
- The bandwagoners
- Mom/Dad/Girlfriend reaction shots to pivotal play
- Ally-oops from half court
- Jay Bilas commercials
- Heeding the advice of a bracketologist the same way you would an osteologist or hematologist
- The surprisingly identical Final Four logo from year to year
- Past Great Alaska Shootout participants beating a two-seed (see: Middle Tennessee)
- Alternative online brackets like “The Greatest Living Americans Bracket”
- The fact the championship game is on a Monday night which means an otherwise regular week just got a little bit more exciting
- The incredibly reliable 5-seed/12-seed first round upset
- Coaches actin’ a foul
- Coaches really actin’ a foul
- Post game locker room celebrations
- The occasional history lesson (who was Stephen F. Austin?)
- Blue mascots (Blue Devils and Blue Raiders)
- Red mascots (Red Raiders)
- Green mascots (Irish)
- The unlikely heroes (and villains)
- The NCAA reminding us every commercial timeout that “99% of student-athletes will go pro in something other than sports.”
- The lexicon of color commentators
- Dicky Veeeeeeee!!!
- The Sports Illustrated cover
- The Wheaties box featuring the championship team
- Controversial calls (he was clearly out-of-bounds!!)
- “The Shot” (Duke vs. Kentucky)
- Celebrity brackets (why do we care?)
- Googling what ever happened to so-and-so from March Madness past
- The pseudo-confidence you conjure up when filling out a bracket
- Jumping up and down in exaltation after your team wins
- The Cinderella Story
- The Cinderella Story that wasn’t
- Emotional post-game interviews
- The immediate cloaking of championship swag on the winning team after the final buzzer
- Gus Johnson’s calls
- It’s an excuse to wear my Brandon Triche Syracuse jersey
- It signals the beginning of the end of the semester
- Half court swishes
- The player-coach embrace after victory
