NCAA Tournament

Many things have been said and written about the NCAA tournament, but the following sums it up rather nicely.  It was written by Harlen Coben, an American novelist, for Parade Magazine.

"The Super Bowl may be our biggest party night, and the World Series may be the pinnacle of our national pastime. But our hearts and souls somehow belong to March Madness, Old and young, rich and poor, Republican and Democrat, in workplaces, in Rotary Clubs, in bars, in houses of worship —there is something about this amateur spectacle that brings us together."

Some random facts about the teams and tournament.

• More regular season championship teams (9 of 12) have reached the Final Four than conference tournament winners (8 of 12).
• Since 1989, a #5 has beaten a #12 in every year (except for two).
• Only three teams in the past 26 years have finished the regular season ranked #1 and have gone on to win the championship.
• Since 1979, the championship game has matched two #1 seeds only six times.
• Missouri is the first 30-win team from a power conference NOT to receive a #1 seed.
• Washington is the first team from a "power conference" to win its regular season title and not get an NCAA bid.
• With its win on Sunday, Vanderbilt won its first SEC men's basketball championship since 1951.
• No team has won the NCAA championship after losing its first game in the conference tournament. • Illinois, who started the season at 10-0, completed its collapse by not even getting a bid to the NIT.
• Nashville and Cincinnati are the only two cities with a pair of NCAA tournament teams (Nashville has Belmont and Vanderbilt; Cincy has Xavier and the University of Cincinnati).
• 2011 marked the first time in five years a #1 seed didn't win the national championship. Overall, nine of the past 13 national champions have been #1 seeds.
• In the last 12 years, NCAA titles have been distributed as follows: ACC-5, Big East-3, SEC-2, Big Ten-1, Big 12-1
• Drexel, who failed to get an NCAA bid, had won 19-straight games heading into their conference championship game.
• No school beginning with the letters (B, E, J, P, Q, R, X, Y, or Z) has ever won an NCAA D-I basketball title. • Northwestern, which hosted the first NCAA final in 1939, is the only school from one of the "power conferences" never to play in the NCAA tournament.
• Harvard, who plays Vanderbilt in a battle of academic powerhouses, is playing in its first NCAA tournament. • Of the 33 national champions since seeding began, 29 of them were #1, #2 or #3 seeds.