March Madness is widely regarded as one of the most exciting sports tournaments/playoffs in the United States. This year, the competition was elevated like never before.

The tournament starts with Selection Sunday, when teams who have qualified for the tournament are given a seed assigned to them based on strength of schedule and record.

There are four regions that make up the tournament’s overall bracket: the South, East, West and Midwest. This year, the four number one overall seeds from each of these regions were Auburn, Florida, Duke and Houston.

The tournament quickly started with an upset as the 12th seeded McNeese overcame the 5th seeded Clemson after a terrible shooting performance. Over 70 percent of brackets were instantly destroyed, knocking them out of contention for being perfect.

Over the next two days, all 32 games were played. The most notable upsets were Memphis to  Colorado State and McNeese over Clemson.

In the Round of 32, the best game of the entire tournament was played; 4 seed Maryland took on the Cinderella team, number 12 Colorado State. As a Cinderella team, your the last team to be expected to win, but Colorado St. was in it to win it. It was back and forth all game long, and at one point looked like Colorado State was going to shock the world. 

Down two points, Senior Nique Clifford was attempting to back down Selton Miguel of Maryland and hook passed across the court to senior Jalen Lake who shot a deep 3-pointer and hit it. Maryland then advanced the ball up the court to call a timeout.

In the timeout, coach Kevin Willard asked his team who wanted the ball in such a stressful situation. That is when true freshman Derik Queen, a Baltimore native, spoke up.

Queen would go on to hit the game-winning shot as the game time expired, sending Maryland to their first Sweet 16 since 2016.

From that point forward, the teams who were expected to win would move on, except for Arkansas, the No. 11 seed, who would continue to shock the world and move forward.

After the sweet sixteen, eight remained, including Auburn, Duke, Houston, Florida, Alabama, Michigan State, Tennessee and Texas Tech. Getting to this stage of the tournament makes a team part of the Elite Eight.

 This is where it gets serious. With eight of the top 10 teams, and the best of the best in the country, the games are all competitive. The worst game of this round was Duke versus Alabama, in which Duke won by 20.

Houston also took home the win against Tennessee by a margin of 19 points. 

Both Duke and Houston appeared to be the front runners to win the whole tournament, and they would meet each other in the Final Four.

The Florida Gator’s Walter Clayton Jr. had a stellar performance. The Gators were able to close out the game, winning by five points with a final score of 84-79.

Finally, the most anticipated match of the round was Auburn vs Michigan State. Many people had Michigan State winning and going to the Final Four. However, Auburn played well and held their own the whole game, eventually being able to close it out and move on to the final, with a winning score  of 70-64. This win ruined many people’s brackets.

For the first time since 2008, and only the second time ever, all four No. 1 seeds made it to the Final Four and won their overall region. Duke would go on to face Houston, and Auburn would play Florida, giving the winners of these match-ups the opportunity to send a team to the National Championship.

The first half of the Auburn and Florida games was all Auburn. The game was led by future National Basketball Association (NBA) first round pick Jhoni Broome, who hit layup after layup and fadeaway jump shot after fadeaway jump shot. However, Florida was able to keep up with this pace and managed to maintain only a 6-point deficit.

Finally, in the second half of the game, one of the best shooting teams in the country led by one of the best shooters finally started connecting on his 3-point attempts. Out of the gate, they hit three 3-pointers. At one point, it became too much for Auburn and Florida won the game moving on to the National Championship.

All season long, Houston was the best defensive team in all of college basketball. On the other hand, Duke was the best team offensively all year, led by Cooper Flagg, the future number one overall pick in the NBA draft. This second Final Four game was lackluster until the very end when Duke blew a huge lead within 30 seconds. Houston went on to force three stops and get the ball back, scoring each time.

Houston and Florida would then meet in the National Championship.

In the National Championship, Florida was down pretty much the entire time. But, like they did all tournament, Florida began to heat up from beyond the ark. Houston quickly started to fall behind, unable to match every point that Florida scored.

Walter Clayton Jr. started this game terribly, missing his first three attempts, but in the second half, he turned on the burners and did not slow down. The lottery pick and future top 15 NBA pick, single-handedly started to bring Florida back into the game. His teammates were able to finish the job.

For Houston, it was heartbreak; for Florida, March Madness ended in their first National Championship since back-to-back wins in 2006 and 2007.