This article is written by a student writer from the Her Campus at UK chapter.

The screaming. The excitement. The buzzer-beaters. The upsets. The constant airing of college basketball games on TrueTV, CBS and all ESPN channels.

This is March Madness.

“Females do not even understand what March Madness is.” WRONG. Your girl has been sitting in front of the TV with her daddy for the majority of my life, as well as sitting at the kitchen table with him, filling out a bracket each year.

However for those of you who are not so familiar with March Madness, I have found a definition for you.

“The time of the annual NCAA college basketball tournament, generally throughout the month of March.” (Thank you, Google.)

March Madness is undoubtedly the best time of year for sports lovers and here are a few reasons why.

The anticipation during the regular season

Ultimately all of the Division I college basketball games that are played from late November all the way to the last week of February, into early March, are teams’ time to prove themselves and to win as many games as possible in order to A) Make it into the NCAA tournament, or B) Get a really highly-ranked seed in the tournament, which is ideal.

During the regular season, you never know what is going to happen. Your favorite collegiate team could go undefeated all season, or they could not win a game. If your team does not perform well during the regular season, they will not receive their invite to the NCAA tournament.

The Selection Show

The Sunday before the NCAA tournament starts the selection show airs on ESPN. For sports lovers, this show is like Christmas morning. This is the first time fans and basketball lovers get to see where, when and who their favorite team will be playing (if they get into the field of 64 teams in the NCAA tournament.) There is something about the uncertainty of how the seeding’s are going to be and which teams get in that is so exciting!

The actual tournament

From the time the first tip-off happens in the first play-in game, to the final buzzer in the national championship game roughly four weeks later, college basketball fans all across the country are glued to their TV’s, phones, tablets, computers, etc. tuning into all of the tournament games, as well as constantly checking scores of games that may have happened during school/work hours. (Your boss probably will not be happy with you if you are watching college basketball while on the clock. Not that I know from experience or anything.)

The “Cinderella Teams”

Even if your team has been knocked out of the tournament by the time the championship game has played, chances are you have found another team to root for that you would have never thought you would have before.

I tend to fall in love with the teams that make into the tournament that have somehow won their way into the field of 64. These teams are what college basketball fanatics refer to as the “Cinderella teams.”

“Cinderella team: used to refer to situations in which competitors achieve far greater success than would reasonably have been expected. Cinderella stories tend to gain much media and fan attention as they move closer to the championship game at the end of the tournament.”

During this year’s NCAA tournament, the Cinderella team was the UMBC Retrievers. The Retrievers single handedly demolished in the number one overall seed in the NCAA tournament, Virginia.

I could go on and on for days about why I personally think that March Madness is the best time of year, but I will just leave it at this—if you have not taken the time to sit down and watch any NCAA tournament games, there is still time to do so this season.

The final eight teams will be playing this week to earn their spot into the final four!

Why March Madness is Undoubtedly the Best Time of the Year

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