An average of 9.9 million people, according to ESPN, watched a women’s college basketball national title game on Sunday that didn’t feature the odds-on pretournament favorite, South Carolina, which had fallen to Iowa in the Final Four. No team seeded No. 1 on the men’s side even made the round of 8, the first time that had happened in the tournament’s current format.
It was an upset-laden, bracket-busting three weeks of games, filled with entertaining moments big and small. Here is what we learned from the March-into-April Madness.
Never bet against an underdog from New Jersey.
One spring after a swashbuckling St. Peter’s team (from Jersey City) sashayed its way into the men’s round of 8, Fairleigh Dickinson (from Teaneck) and Princeton (from … Princeton) fanned their own feathers. And they nearly were as iridescent as those of the Peacocks.
Though Fairleigh Dickinson lost in the second round, the Knights’ stunner of No. 1 seed Purdue in their first game reverberated throughout the entire tournament. That was especially true because it came just a day after Princeton’s stunner over second-seeded Arizona. The Tigers then knocked off Missouri to advance to the round of 16 before falling to Creighton.
The celebrations of pure joy in the immediate aftermath of what both Princeton and Fairleigh Dickinson had accomplished were both heartwarming and inspirational. For pure chaos, good hoops and human interest stories — Princeton’s Blake Peters, who drained five 3-point shots in the second-round win over Missouri, plays Spanish classical guitar and speaks fluent Mandarin? — the tournament’s opening weekend is the best. Especially, these days, in Jersey. — Scott Miller
