Our nation needs March Madness

COVID-19 gave our nation a blow to the body on March 12, 2020, when the NCAA basketball tournament, popularly known as March Madness, was cancelled for the first time in its history. Millions of sports fans stood in disbelief, as Selection Sunday did not reveal the 68 teams set to vie for a national championship.   

The incoming tsunami of infections and deaths that followed would provide ample distraction from what our nation missed in March 2020. With almost 30 million confirmed cases and over 530,000 deaths to date, expectations and hopes for college sports in general, and March Madness 2021 in particular, have been tempered, with games typically played in empty stadiums and arenas over the past year. The hope offered by three vaccines provide a glimmer of optimism that spectators will be welcomed back to the stands to cheer on their favorite teams. 

March Madness 2021 is the stepping stone to the new normal in a COVID-19 world. All games will be played in the Indianapolis area, with spectators allowed in the arenas at 25 percent capacity. Every team invited to the dance will be given the opportunity to participate, provided they follow the necessary medical protocols and stay infection free. Bracketology has been alive and well since January. 

As COVID-19 crushed March Madness 2020, our nation is demonstrating its resiliency by staging March Madness 2021. This year’s tournament is evidence that our nation is on its way forward to something better.   

Why does our nation need March Madness? 

After a crisis, the best way to respond is to begin to reaffirm routines. March Madness is the annual event that draws the attention of millions of people. What better way to signal that our nation is moving forward than to reignite the frenzy of March Madness and give people back the very first event that COVID-19 took from them. 

Young people have not suffered the widespread direct health effects of COVID-19. However, there were 20 percent more deaths among 15 to 24 year olds in the nine months since March 2020 when compared with the same time period in 2019. Yet just one-tenth of these deaths were directly attributed to COVID-19. The remaining 90 percent were likely a result of the societal changes brought about by COVID-19. March Madness represents the seeds of a new world that will keep such young people safe as society transitions into a COVID-19 environment. 

March Madness unites people. No matter which team you are rooting for, a common bond exists between all people who are following the games. Everyone looks forward to the David and Goliath match up when a previously unknown low-major team takes on a college basketball power, hoping to pull the upset that catapults them into the public’s eye. We all remember when the University of Maryland Baltimore County (UMBC) defeated the University of Virginia in 2018, marking the first time a number 16 seed beat a number one seed. UMBC enjoyed their 48 hours of fame and notoriety as they shattered millions of brackets. This gave people a common theme to discuss and bond over. In an environment that people grasp onto their differences, March Madness provides the opportunity to unite, something sorely missing in our nation. 

When the 68 teams are announced on March 14, and the first game tips off on March 18, this will be evidence that we are on our way forward.  We may not be returning to what we had, but we will be moving onto something better than what began with the abrupt cancellation of March Madness 2020. Let the games begin! 

Sheldon H. Jacobson, Ph.D., is a founder professor of Computer Science at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the founder of the Bracketodds website, a STEM Learning Lab at the University.