March Madness 2023 is upon us. As always, this time of year brings out the office pools and brackets, frequent checks of ESPN, and watching countless hours of college basketball. People will be tuned in to both live and taped games in the hopes of making that perfect bracket. While no “official” study has been done, many employers have reported 5-35% drops in productivity during the 3-week tournament.
Defending champion Kansas, as well as Alabama, Houston, and Purdue will enter this year’s field of 68 as No. 1 seeds. Arizona, Marquette, Texas, and UCLA will round out the top 8 as No. 2 seeds. Of all of these teams, Kansas is the only number 1 to win the NCAA title, with Arizona and UCLA the only number 2 teams to take the crown.
This year the schedule has changed up a bit, with Tuesday the 14th and Wednesday the 15th only offering games at 6:30 and 9 pm eastern. The 16th is when the schedule becomes wide open, with a noon opening tip-off, and the final game for the day starting just before 10 pm. While the games begin to space out after the weekend, with multiple days without any contests, the bracket studying, game footage analysis, and “makeup” brackets will be flying.
Picking that perfect bracket is a nearly impossible feat. According to the NCAA, the odds of doing it completely right is 1 in 9,223,372,036,854,775,808 (or approximately 1 in 9.2 quintillions). Many see theirs destroyed in the opening round, many even in the opening game. With this being a single-elimination tournament, there are no “rebound” opportunities for losing teams or changes for bracket makers to make it up the next game.
Even if you’re not a basketball fan, these kids put in a serious effort to make it to the tournament, and with so many teams in top positions who’ve never won the title before, this promises to be a great year!!
