In a matter of months, the college basketball betting lines will be receiving more action then every other sport, except maybe the Super Bowl. The reason for this increase in action, is because of the annual March Madness Tournament, which features the best teams in the nation, battling it out for the opportunity to be named National Champion. Today for your bookie software pleasure, we’ll be looking at some of the traditions associated with winning the best tournament in sports.
The NCAA March Madness Tournament has seemingly been around, as long as the NCAA has been around. Starting out with only the best teams in the entire nation, the NCAA has expanded its March Madness Tournament to feature 68 teams in a four bracket month long tournament. Each bracket has 16 teams in it, for a total of 64 teams, meaning that eight teams play for the final spots to enter the tournament, in qualifying games called play ins. The play ins have become an annual tradition, which allows NBA scouts an opportunity, to maybe look upon players they otherwise may have passed over, had all 16 seeds simply been awarded to different schools.
As the tournament progresses, different trophies and rituals are provided by each remaining team. For instance, similar to the NBA, the NCAA has a regular season MVP and then a playoff tournament (March Madness) MVP, for the player who has basically carried their team the entire tournament. Last season, Jimmer Fredette of the BYU Cougars won the regular season MVP award prior to the tournament. Then, when the Connecticut Huskies won the 2010 – 11 edition of March Madness, guard Kemba Walker was named tournament MVP for his heroics. Another tradition associated with winning the National Title, is to cut down the netting of the basket the winning team has scored upon. This tradition signifies the end of the tournament for another year.
