Frese and Witthoft won the teacher March Madness bracket.

The NCAA mens and womens basketball tournaments, dubbed March Madness, brings a time of underdog triumphs and heartbreak. Powerhouse programs are knocked out of competition in a single elimination tournament. Along with viewing the games, fans create brackets for how they believe the tournament will end, picking victors for each game in the stage of the tournament. 

A notorious sense of March sadness is shared amongst those whose brackets are “busted” when teams are unexpectedly beaten early on in the tournament, ruining their expected matchups later on in their individually crafted bracket. While no person has ever predicted the tournament to 100% accuracy, there is a cash prize of one million dollars per year from the Warren Buffett Foundation.

For senior Willow Olsen, winning her family’s bracket pool might not end in becoming a millionaire, but the prize is high enough to track the accuracy of her brackets throughout the multiple weeks of the tournament. 

“Whoever gets the most points [of the pool] gets to pick dinner that everyone has to attend sometime. But, being someone who doesn’t watch much basketball I usually rely on a teams initial rankings, and my instincts; the faith I have in them to win,” said Oleson 

This year the mens’ tournament did not go as expected to say the least. The last round with a seeded team ranked higher than fourth was in the “Elite Eight”. Underdog team Florida Atlantic University ranked ninth made it to the final fourth losing to San Diego State by one point, making program and tournament history. 

“I feel like a lot of the time I have the underdog win, Because I think it’s fun. The less skilled players show up the players who are expected to dominate,” said Oleson.

However, the womens’ tournament brought a great sense of pride to the Iowa City community as the University of Iowa Hawkeyes’ Made it to the national championship game. Many West High students and their families watched, cheered and some even traveled to Dallas to see the big game in person. 

“The fact we [Iowa] got to be represented on a national stage and getting to see that was really cool,” said Harrison Reimers ‘23 who traveled with his family to watch the Hawks in both the final four and championship games. 

While the Hawkeyes might have lost to LSU in the championship, Caitlin Clark junior on the team and Iowa native was named national player of the year, and had the first forty point triple-double in tournament history. Clark was said to have an effect on the tournament as a whole with her champion mentality and long range three-point accuracy. Viewership for the women’s tournament, specifically the Iowa vs. Louisville game (an Elite Eight matchup) surpassed by the millions the numbers for both the men’s tournament and the NBA. The final four and championship matches brought in numbers never seen before for womens’ basketball. 

“If you give us a platform, we will deliver,” said Caitlin Clark when asked to comment on the groundbreaking viewership numbers. Many see this as the new future of women’s basketball with increased support, now we only have to wait for the NCAA to catch up.

Not only has she (Clark) given young athletes all across the nation someone to look up to and admire. But Clark being a Hawkeye gives young Iowa City athletes the opportunity to witness her greatness on a much closer level. 

“She makes the game so entertaining. She’s so talented and fun to watch that it just brings people to watch basketball.” said Lucy Wolf, a junior on the girl’s basketball team.