This year’s March Madness tournaments had just about everything — close games, buzzer beaters and, of course, two champion.
The University of Connecticut Huskies women’s team won their 12th NCAA championship this year, with the dynamic trio of Paige Bueckers, Sarah Strong and Final Four Most Outstanding Player Azzi Fudd leading the way. The Huskies dominated the tournament easily with their closest game being a 14-point victory over the University of Southern California. Bueckers had over 100 points in the span of three games during the tournament, proving that she was hungry for the win and ready for the biggest stage in college basketball despite the injuries she has gone through in her career at UConn. Strong, who is a freshman this year, was absolutely the most impressive player to watch throughout UConn’s championship run. Even Head Coach Geno Auriemma said before the tournament that he was unsure how Strong would perform since she is a freshman and there was a lot of pressure on her, but she set the tournament record for points scored by a freshman and is the first freshman since 2010 to have four double-doubles in a tournament. Although I picked South Carolina to win it all, I was thrilled to see Bueckers finally get a title after battling so much adversity, and this team really worked hard all season to get to the championship.
Overall, for the women’s tournament, the only thing that could have made it better would have been a Paige Bueckers versus Juju Watkins rematch. Watkins, the Naismith Player of the Year, tragically tore her ACL in USC’s second-round game against Mississippi State. I watched as many games as possible, and almost every one was incredibly competitive, even if the score did not reflect that, which I think is something unique to women’s basketball that I enjoy seeing.
On the men’s side, the championship game was much more exciting with the Houston Cougars falling to the Florida Gators in the last few minutes of action. This is Florida’s first championship since they went back-to-back in 2006 and 2007. The Gators trailed by as many as 12 points throughout the game, and it seemed like they had lost their steam with eight minutes to go. They proved me wrong and were led by Final Four Most Outstanding Player Walter Clayton Jr., who scored 11 points in the second half after getting shut down in the first to lead the Gators to a two-point win over Houston. While there were complaints about the lack of a Cinderella team this year, players like Clayton Jr. are a prime example of how the transfer portal has allowed players to move up in the NCAA and perform at a higher level. Clayton Jr. started his collegiate career at Iona University and then transferred to Florida in 2023, representing former mid-major players in a huge way.
The rest of the men’s tournament was lots of fun to watch this year — as a die-hard Kentucky Wildcats fan, it meant the world to see Mark Pope lead the Cats to a Sweet Sixteen appearance in his very first year at Kentucky. After losing in the first or second round to Cinderella teams for the last three years, it was so exciting to finally see Kentucky show up in the tournament. Other teams that stood out to me were Auburn, and frankly I am still shocked that Florida was able to overcome them, but that is this year’s Southeastern Conference for you. Throughout the season they had incredibly strong offense and defense, and really their only weakness was their semi-reliance on senior forward Johni Broome.
Auburn, Florida, Houston and Duke made up the Final Four this year, marking the first time since 2008 that every top-seeded team made it to the Final Four. While I prefer years when there is more diversity of seeds in the later rounds, this really proves how strong the one seeds were this year. Additionally, although all one seeds in the Final Four can be seen as boring, every team had at least one game that was not only close, but that they were in danger of losing.
Overall, this year’s March Madness was everything I always hope for, there were close games, high levels of competition and great storylines from the players. The only thing that could have made this year better would have been some winning brackets, but I will try again next year.
