Welcome to a new sports segment on The Voice. Every two weeks, I will preview and review some of the biggest events in the sports world. For this first edition, I have the honor of telling the story of the greatest tournament in the world: March Madness.
To truly understand what makes the competition as special as it is, we must first dive into the moments that shaped it.
It’s Selection Sunday in 2018. Sixty-eight teams, from the bluest of blue bloods to the smallest of Cinderellas, take a peek at the fresh bracket. Everyone is filled with optimism.
However, nobody had as much hope as the No.1 overall seed, the 31-win Virginia Cavaliers. Their slow-moving, stifling, and pesky style of play had them entering the dance with just a pair of losses.
The reward for the best team in the country was a little school called University of Maryland, Baltimore County (UMBC). The Retrievers entered the game against Goliath as a 20.5-point underdog. Never in the history of the NCAA tournament had a 16-seed beaten a 1-seed.
All the critics and analysts had penciled in Virginia to throttle UMBC. But like talking to Vincent Van Gogh’s left side, they couldn’t hear any of it.
After a grind-it-out first half, UMBC found itself leading at the break. Virginia was close for the last time.
The Retrievers went on to beat Virginia by a whopping 20 points, causing shock and awe in college basketball.
Where else but March Madness can a team no one’s ever heard of become the talk of the sports world?
The conductor of that UMBC team, Ryan Odom, became the center of the college basketball world.
After getting the biggest win not just in program history, but in college basketball history, he quickly became the hottest name in the coaching carousel. So much so that, in the present day, Ryan Odom is the current head coach of the Virginia Cavaliers, the team whose dreams he crushed eight years ago.
Where else but March Madness?
The best part of this underdog story, however, has not been told. After being the laughingstock of college basketball, the future of Virginia was in jeopardy. Would this be the loss that derails a college basketball powerhouse into irrelevancy? No.
The following year, fueled by humiliation and anger, the Virginia Cavaliers won March Madness.
Where else but March Madness can the jester turn into the king?
Not to sound like Cindy Lou Who talking about the true meaning of Christmas, but the true meaning of March doesn’t reside in the brackets or buckets. It’s about the lives changed, the legends created, and the stories told for generations. Enjoy the rest of the tournament, folks.