ROLLASON: The Madness begins

It’s the most wonderful time of the year — and no I’m not talking about Christmas.

I’m referring to March Madness.

There might not be a better depiction of March Madness than what has been going on this past weekend. The NCAA tournament has yet to start and things are already getting crazy.

Every day there is a different set of teams projected to be the top four seeds in the tournament. All season long analysts have been trying to determine who the best team in the country is and just when they think they have figured it out, the top team gets knocked off.

There were multiple times this season where Indiana was determined to be the best team in the country, and as soon as they assumed that role they got upset.
The Hoosiers clinched the Big 10 regular season title this past weekend with a win at Michigan, if they finish out strong they will no doubt be a top seed in the tournament and maybe even the team to beat overall.

Duke has also been discussed as being a number 1 seed, this past weekend they went into North Carolina and absolutely destroyed their rivals on their own home court, on top of that the Blue Devils started the game with a 14-0 lead.

As of right now it is hard to determine who the team to beat is. Last year everyone knew that Kentucky was the best team in the country and looked to the tournament to see if they would be able to take care of business — this year it is still up in the air if the Wildcats will even make the tournament.

The beautiful thing about college basketball is that there is so much parody every year, but this year there might be too much parody. Often times there is only a handful of teams that are viewed as the favorites and are good enough to make their way through the tournament and win, but this year there is a solid 15-20 teams that have shown that they might be able to win the championship.

This is certainly going to be one of the best tournaments yet, I am going to say that there is going to be quite a few upsets this year, but that’s nothing new is it?

March Madness always brings amazing upsets to the table. Just this past weekend Liberty University won the Big South Championship and claimed a spot in the big dance. Liberty University has a record of 15-20 this season — a 20-loss team in the tournament, that is madness right there.

It is hard to call a winner this early, seeing as the bracket has still yet to come out. So I’m not going to make a prediction on who will win just yet. Earlier in the season I said that Indiana would win the Championship and as for now I am still going to stick with that.

But I am anxious for selection Sunday to be here in a few days. Once the bracket is released it will be much easier to determine a champion. As for now, let’s just enjoy “Championship Week.”

Tyler Rollason is a Winder-Barrow High School graduate and mass communications major at the University of West Georgia. He writes a weekly column for the Barrow Journal. You can e-mail comments about this column to tyrollason@yahoo.com.