What is March Madness?

March Madness is the plethora of college basketball games in the month of March. This rapid amount of games is for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) tournament.

Every year, college basketball fans look forward predicting the outcomes of the tournament. These are done in bracket form. The trend has gained so much traction that even the former President of the United States, Barack Obama, has filled out his own bracket.

When I bring up the NCAA tournament with my friends, I always get the same reaction: a loud groan and some commentary about the different games that broke their brackets. Luckily, a new idea has come forth: the second chance bracket.

The second chance bracket has a dual purpose. For the majority of us who have had a bracket busted, it is a chance to start over in a sense. A way people can utilize the second chance bracket is that it automatically starts you at the point of the tournament where only 16 teams remain. This is also known as the Sweet 16.

Rather than choosing from the pool of 64 teams, you only choose from 16, giving you a better chance of winning it all.

The second chance bracket craze has even made its way to deToledo High School. Seniors Cory Blumstein and Daniel Wasserman have filled out their second chance brackets. Blumstein filled out his second chance bracket because it “gives [him] a second chance to do better.”

“We live in a society of second chances, depending on the scenario, of course, so it’s fitting that the same be done about my bracket.”

Wasserman claims that his last bracket “didn’t do very well, so now I have three second chance brackets just in case.”

Wasserman is not the only one who has multiple second chance brackets. Others fill out this second chance bracket because watching games with a busted bracket just isn’t the same. Freshman Sammy Strear says, “it makes watching the games a lot more interesting!”

But then there is the flipside of this scenario. Why should we be given a second chance with our bracket lives if our real lives consist of one life?

People like English teacher Darren Masserman have strong feelings about why only one bracket should be filled out. I had a conversation with him about it, and he told me he enjoys “the purity of starting from the beginning and seeing it all the way through.”

He asked me, “do the teams that were eliminated get a second chance? No they do not.”

Now, this view of bracketology is definitely not frowned upon and is accepted by many. However, Masserman does have a reason to not give up on his bracket just yet: before I left to my next class he told me, “although my bracket isn’t perfect, my champion is still in the running. Go Bruins!”

UCLA is still in the running and has a good shot to win it all.