Top 10 Craziest March Madness Facts
Well we have had some memorable moments in March whether it’s the buzzer beaters or raising the trophy at the end there’s been some unexplainable things happen. Here’s some crazy things about the tournament you probably didn’t knowIf you're a perfectionist, then good luck with filling out a bracket. You would have to predict 63 games correctly. Think of it like flipping a coin and getting 63 heads in a row. Not likely, right?
You're statistically more likely to win the lottery and get struck by lightning on the same day. To put that in perspective, a quintillion is a billion billions.
While they're a bit irrelevant nowadays, the Bruins have won 11 total championships. Ten of these came in their golden age when John Wooden was their head coach.
They have not won it all since 1995.
The Final 4 is one of the most prestigious stages in college basketball. Making it all the way to the semifinal round is a big deal. While most expect higher seeds to make it, there have been a few surprising Cinderella teams that made it out of their region.
LSU in 1986, George Mason in 2006, VCU in 2011, and Loyola Chicago in 2018 are examples. However, none have made the final round.
We all know that the Lady Huskies own Women's College Basketball. They have run the table in college basketball twice, in 2004 and 2014.
The Big East was stacked back then, having 3 teams in the Final 4. Nova was far from a mid-major and nobody expected the Wildcats to upset the heavily favored Georgetown Hoyas to win the championship.
A 1 over a 16 seed? It seems like a no-brainer. From the time the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985 until 2018, 16 seeds were 0-135 all time against 1 seeds. Most were blown out, but a few came extremely close to victory.
In 1989, for example, Princeton lost 50-49 to the Georgetown Hoyas when a last-second shot fell short. The curse of the No. 16 seed was finally broken in 2018, when the UMBC Retrievers shocked the Virginia Cavaliers 74-54.
Unfortunately, UMBC's Cinderella run ended in the very next round, when they lost to the Kansas State Wildcats.
The 5 seed is a bit of an untold curse. Butler in 2010, Indiana in 2002, and Florida in 2000 are the only ones to have risen from that humble ranking to the title game. None were victorious.
Also worth noting is that 12 over 5 seeds is not uncommon.
Michigan and LMU both faced off and put up NBA-like numbers, with the Wolverines winning 149-115. Defense? What is that?
Harvard is a prestigious university, but maybe not in basketball. Before the 2011-12 season, the Crimson hadn't made the tournament since right after World War II, in 1946.
In 1970, Austin Carr scored a stunning 61 points in a first-round win over Ohio. The Irish put up 112 in that game. He followed that up with 52 points in a loss against Kentucky.
Since then, the closest anyone has come to breaking his mark was when Navy's David Robinson notched 50 points in his final collegiate game in 1987.
In this Final Four, Kansas won the tournament over Memphis in overtime. The other Final Four teams were UNC and UCLA.
This was the last national championship game Kansas has won.