By: Antajuan Harvey

March Madness is one of the most exciting events in sports, where 68 college basketball teams compete for a national championship. Every year fans look forward to the excitement, especially the unexpected upsets. 

A major part of the tournament is the “Cinderella story” . A Cinderella story that’s currently happening right now is number 11, Texas is still alive they beat two top six ranked teams to make it to the sweet 16.No one ever saw this coming from Texas. They fought as a team and they have proven they deserve their spot as a 11 seed. Now they are one of the biggest teams to look out for 

because they are red hot. They’ve beaten strong teams from major conferences and are playing with a lot of confidence. 

Another big factor in all of this is NIL. With NIL athletes can now make money and choose where they want to play. So what is happening right now is the D1 programs that’s not a big school. They are not really getting the athletes so if you don’t get the athletes, you can’t produce it. You can’t get the greatest record and you can’t be in a more smart bracket so because of this bigger programs are dominating and we’re seeing more well known schools like Iowa Michigan Houston and many other more big-time schools.

This can take some fun out of Marche madness. Sometimes we don’t get that lower level D1 school like how we used to get and they come into dominate. So they should not get rid of NIL but instead of removing NIL there could be limits or more balance systems so smaller programs have a fair chance to compete so the lower level D1 teams can get the star athletes in the star treatment so they can be in these tournaments so we get some bigger upsets. Some friends back home and Jamir and Caliel said they have Duke and Michigan going into the championship and they said they have Duke winning it all because they have one of the most dominant players in college basketball Cameron Boozer. He’s averaging 22.4 points a game with over 10 rebounds a game. It will likely come down to coaching and strategy as teams get closer to the championship. At this stage every team believes they can win especially with the championship so close.

Updated image of March Madness Bracket!

Photo from NCAA.com