Skip navigation
Favorites
Sign up to follow your favorites on all your devices.
Sign up

Is the end of Championship Week the new First Weekend of the NCAA Tournament?

spt-110310-reggie-jackson.standard

It’s becoming a valid question to ask. Fifteen+ tournaments that crown a champion, many in what is usually in dramatic fashion, highlighted by 11 on Saturday, including the ever vaunted Big East Tournament. Is this better than the first weekend of what has been defined as March Madness? In short, yes. Frankly, we’re already immersed in March Madness, and what we’re living in right now might be the most excitement that college basketball can offer for us.

Given that we all get all romantic with the first few round of the tournament, this sounds crazy right? I offer a few examples to justify my school of thought, proof that this may be the apex of the college basketball season. Here’s the best way to justify it:


  • Kemba Walker BLEW up yesterday.
  • There were 50+ important matchups beginning early this afternoon and lasting well into the evening. Almost all mattered and were worth blowing off work for, exemplifying wild emotions among bubble teams and squads that had firmly secured automatic bids alike.
  • Down 11 with 2:17 remaining, Miami outscored Virginia 30-12 in the final 2:17 plus a five minute overtime to continue any Houdini-like hope that they had of playing for the NCAA Tournament.
  • Kemba Walker BLEW up yesterday.

I’m fully aware that the new CBS-Turner TV agreement will force us to channel surf our way through the first few rounds of the tournament as though we are direct descendants of Laird Hamilton, but with a nice handful of networks and cable outlets carrying the bevy of conference tournaments that will wrap up here in the next few days, we’re currently living in an ADD sufferers paradise. A place where multiple game on multiple channels matter, and the chips and dip can’t be replenished at a higher rate.

I remember when my family finally sacked up and threw down for cable. It was 1994. I was still a young-adolescent, fully aware of the NCAA Tournament, but nearly clueless to the pageantry and excitement that was Championship Week. I fell in love with Providence’s Austin Croshere and, shortly thereafter, Wake Forest’s Randolph Childress. I was enthralled by the above-average non-All Americans few were familiar with, but were teeming with talent. This enamoration furthered my understanding of the college game at the time, and really helped equip me with the idea that there was more to this beautiful sport than the Dukes, Kentuckys and UCLAs of the world.

Today, my perspective of the final few days of Championship Week has not changed for me. As we move through somewhat mundane opening round and quarterfinal match-ups, we eagerly await the finality of the BCS conference championships, where that now 68-team tournament has its seedings determined and dreams are dashed as fast as you can say, “onions!”

Yes, we seem to overlook Championship Week, but if you really affix your eyes to what’s taking place, it’s probably the most fascinating aspect of March Madness. A bevy of colorful courts, teams frantically hoping to secure an opportunity to play further into the month, and the opportunity for the little guy to truly feel like the king of the castle. It’s about as beautiful as the game can get.

Don’t look now, but Championship Week is the new March Madness!

Nick Fasulo is the manager of Searching for Billy Edelin. Follow him on Twitter @billyedelin.