Every March, the NCAA basketball tournament takes the country by storm. Every year, there are the powerhouses, underdogs and Cinderella stories. Wayland High School is no exception, with many “March Madness” bracket pools being run around school.
“I’m in one bracket with my friends, and another in my mom’s work,” said sophomore Andy Freedman.
There are a few different pools being run by students and teachers. Juniors Oliver Levin and Ricky Levitt run a pool that has over 50 people. Sophomore Doug Curtin also runs a pool with around 20 people.
While most brackets are only filled out for fun, one group does have a serious cause. Dave Antonell and Wayland’s First Parish created a fundraiser called March Madness for Orphans. Students can fill out a bracket for a 10 dollar donation that will be sent to an orphanage in Nicaragua.
This activity is not only for students – teachers also participate. Latin teacher Edmond DeHoratius has set up a pool exclusively for teachers.
“That’s what so wonderful about the tournament, it’s anybody’s game,” said Academic Center teacher Barbara Wolfson.
Numerous upsets have occurred in tournament, with not a single #1 seed in the final four. This has only happened two previous times in the NCAA tournament history. This year, #11 seed, Virginia Commonwealth University, #8 seed Butler University, #4 seed Kentucky and #3 seed UConn are all in the final four.
Out of 5.9 million brackets filled out on ESPN.com, only two brackets have predicted every game played in the tournament correctly.
“The best brackets we have have two out of the final four teams” said junior Oliver Levin, who is also the league commissioner for his league. “Nobody picked Butler or VCU.”
However, Levin has no hard feelings. “ I was rooting for VCU, even though I had Kansas in my final four,” he said.
The “madness”, however, is not affecting everybody. “I haven’t been been following [the tournament] that closely,” said freshmen Andrew Lidington.
Final four games are this weekend. The tournament concludes with the championship next Monday, and it is safe to say that little homework will be done that night.
