March Madness is an NCAA basketball tournament that was created in 1939. The tournament is between 64 teams and only one can have the title of National Champion. March Madness is undoubtedly one of the greatest times of the year in terms of sports. Sports Statistics teacher, Mr. Blair, involves March Madness with his curriculum in order to spark interest in his students. Isaac Esquivel, ‘25, shares how his bracket has turned out.
By: Cody Abney and Tyler Stark
The tournament started out with an upset with Number 11 Ranked Duqense knocking off Number 6 Ranked BYU in the first round, which busted a lot of brackets. Even the people that had BYU losing were later disappointed when the Number 3 ranked Kentucky ended up falling short to Number 14 Ranked Oakland College, leaving only 5.6% of brackets perfect after only a few games.
There were also some “Cinderella Stories”, such as Number 6 NC State making it to the Final 4 when almost nobody had them making it that far. NC State ended up knocking off Texas Tech, Oakland, Number 2 ranked Marquette, and Number 4 ranked Duke University.
Mr. Blair, who took over the sports statistics class 2 years ago, has included the March Madness tournament in his plan for the first time as a Sports Stats Teacher. Blair says, “The interesting part is I had kids fill out a bracket just to spark the interest in following games through the month of March.” Blair used this bracket to align with the current unit which is Normal Curves.
Isaac Esquivel, ‘25, built his bracket around Duke winning it all. Duke was finding success mostly due to their guard, Esquivel says, “I had Duke and I believed in Jared McCain and the Blue Devils roster.”
Mr. Blair has been using this unit to connect with things that are going on in the current world, hence to why he used March Madness. Blair says, “I find things to connect to things that are going on right now and something that sparks a lot of interest.”
Cody Abney
Cody Abney '25 is a second year writer for the Redwood Gigantea. He is interested in writing for the Sports and Arts and Entertainment. Abney is a very dedicated writer and specializes in feature pieces.
Tyler Stark
Tyler Stark ('24) is in his freshmen year, and this is his first year writing for the Redwood Gigantea. Tyler hopes to work for Sports Illustrated in the future. you can contact him by email with: tyler.st3800@vusd.us
Tags: Cody Abney, march madness, redwood gigantea, redwood high school, redwood journalism, sports, tyler stark
