2006
= This was the first time I did a bracket, being my freshman year of High School, where I guess some things were suddenly OK to do. I still remember I picked UCONN - not a crazy pick, with them being a #1 seed and them being generally considered one of the favorites, and then proceeded to watch them nearly lose three times (including one of the more shockingly close 1-16 games) before finally losing to George Mason. I learned early the heartburn a bracket would cause.
2007
= This is one of the few that will be about a single game, and it was Tennessee's dramatic near upset but ultimately loss to #1 seed Ohio State in teh Sweet 16. I was something of a Tennessee fan back in high school, known for wearing a Tennessee hat (I liked orange... and Peyton Manning) and watching that Tennessee team under Bruce Pearl, led by the shooting monster that was Chris Lofton, I was certain they would pull the upset. I picked it in my bracket. I told everyone within earshot in school that day the upset was coming. Then Tennessee nearly did it - they led by 15 at the half, but Ohio State was really damn good, ripped my heart out, made me eat a ton of crow, and then looking back that single pick cost me the main bracket pool I was in.
2008
= I wrote about this one in the weird coincidence that the final where Kansas beat Memphis in one of the great Title Games of all time was my 17th Birthday (April 7, 2008), the day I got my license. I spent most of that day just driving aroudn with a giant smile plastered on my face. I spent most of that night the same watching Kansas win in truly dramatic fashion. One of the better gifts of the day was watching Calipari lose and Self win (though will admit right now I would over the years fully come around on Calipari).
2009
= I wrote about this one in an aerly nostalgia diaries piece about an MUN conference taking place Sweet 16 weekend where we were all playing mafia as a group at the same time Villanova was blasting Duke whole, adn then on the bus back when Villanova upset Pittsburgh. This was peak "Duke sucks" time in our respective lives, as most youngsters get around the time they are about to leave for college. It was made more promiment by my good friend who was the MUN president, and Salutorian of our school somehow not getting into Duke, which just added to the fun. This four year period was by far the best for a Duke hater, with them going S16 - 1R - 2R - S16.
2010
= I was never really a fan of Gus Johnson and his "let's yell all the time and every moment is the most dramatic of all time" shtick - and yes it is very much shtick in my mind. But there was one exception, and that was giddily listening to Gus Johnson giddily calling the incredible 101-96 Kansas State win over Xavier in double OT. Just hearing Johnson go wild, for the first time for all the right reasons, calling out the big shot after big shot by Jacob Pullen, Dennis Clemente (two all time boss college players) on Kansas State, being answered by big shot after big shot by Jordan Crawford and Terrell Holloway. It was everything you ever want for Gus - only problem is he calls blowouts similarly enough.
2011
= My only real memory of this one is being one of the loudest voices in my friends group getting annoyed at the staggering level of upsets in the 2011 tournament, which saw no #1 or #2 seed make the final four, and #3 UCONN, led by Kemba Walker. I was loud because I was trying to argue that this was one too many upsets. Yes, part of it was by then I was annoyed that Kansas lost again (I was fully in BIll Self being criticized = Peyton Manning being criticized), but I was proven loudly, loudly right with one of the most unwatchable finals with UCONN slobfest win over Butler.
2012
= tbd
2013
= I was in India for most of this tournament, during my Round the World trip. My only real memory is trying to stay awake to watch Kansas play Michigan (this was peak sports illegal streaming where you need to find the real "x" to close every two minutes). I was able to find something of a realistic stream and then fell asleep super early. In the end, was probably so, so lucky that I did when Kansas blew a late lead (or more realistically, Michigan just hit big shot after big shot) in a OT classic loss to Michigan. I don't think Kansas would've won the tournament, but Michigan did go to the final....
2014
= This was the first year I was able to do something of a rite of passage, I guess, which is go watch March Moundadness at a bar. At this point we were well into the CBS/Turner days where all games were on TV. I was 23, my friends were all 21+, and we just went on the Saturday of Round 1 and watched game after game after game. To be honest, I don't remember any specific games we watched, but I remember where we were: Buffalo Wild Wings, where else!?
2015
= So, in 2013, I wrote about a time I fell asleep trying to stay up to watch a game from a foreign country a few time zones away. Well, here was a more successful example. The 2015 season was the story of that dominant, Freshman heavy Kentucky team (the KAT year) going undefeated into the Final Four. I was in Italy with family the weekend of the Final Four, adn remember somewhat following on my phone at dinner, realizing when we got back to our hotel at probably near midnight, that Kentucky was in a dogfight against Wisconsin. We had our flight back the US the next morning, but no way I was going to not watch history potentially. The wifi wasn't great, and streaming wasn't too much better in the two intervening years, but powered through it and saw one of the great spectacles.
2016
= Very few of these have photos, because most don't need one - but this is a story of a photo. Was watching in my basement, on my favorite chair, late night in the first round and realized the above scores. That is March Madness brilliance in a nutshell. The game I'm watching a three point game with a minute to go in the 11-6 game. At the top we have another 63-66 game, a 66-65 game with three minutes to go, and a game that just ended at 79-74 in the 12-5 matchup. That is March. That is why we do it. None of the eight teams in the picture was higher than a #5 seed, but yet there was magic on television.
2017
= My strongest friend group (highschool) has a GroupMe group chat going that's been going since I think around 2014. Around 2016 or so we realized you can change your name in GroupMe, which has led to roughly 2,000 inside jokes since. For whatever reason the 2017 tournament inspired many. One was for Chris Chiozza, who's driving crazy layup gave Florida a shocking win. Another was for the amazingly named Sindarious Thornwell, who led South Carolina to a dominant 88-81 win over Duke in the 2nd round (yeah, we were still a fuck Duke group), but the capper was probably for Luke Maye, who hit the game winner to knock off Kentucky (back then when we were also a fuck Kentucky / Calipari group). Of course, funny that I changed my own name to a Maye pun then and nearly a decade later would learn to hate that family.
2018
= I wrote about this one at the time, but this was the first tournament at my new job, where a group of us went out for drinks on teh Friday Night after work (and drinks at the WeWork). We were already fairly buzzed when we reached a random sports bar to settle in for a few hours. Syracuse has a lot of alums in New York, so understanbly all the main screens showed that. A little screen in the corner was showing #1 overall seed Virginia against UMBC. It was close all first half which was a bit surprising, but not like impossible. Then came the second half, and UMBC just wouldn't go away. Then they took the lead. Then it got to under 10 minutes with them leading, and Syracuse winning by enough the bar was coerced into putting UMBC on the main screen. And then we saw something unprecedented in a group of lubricated folks ready to see something unprecedented. There are few other games I was more happy to be around a ton of random March Madness fans than this one.
2019
= And now a more personal story of watching a game inebriated. We have a Purdue alum and a truly fanatical Purdue basketball fan in our friend group, who luckily went to Purdue as Matt Painter was started and has lived through their, relatively pseaking, glory years ever since. Up until 2019 they ran into some cahllenge, but in 2019 they made the Elite Eight against Virginia, so a couple friends and I decided to watch the game at his house, and while the game itself was amazing, it was a crushing Purdue loss, including them losing after they couldn't get a missed free thrwo by Virginai with about eight seconds to go when up by two. More than anything though, it was amazing watching our relatively not fanatical sports fan friend (other than tennis) watch our Purdue fan friend increasingly lose his mind, screaming at perceived bad calls, getting angry at bad shots and then get depressed to hell. For me, it was cathartic live evidence I wasn't the only one who acts that way.
2020
= So, as many will remember there was no tournament in 2020, as March Madness was the first real casualty in the sports calendar of Covid. We're nearing the anniversary of the announcement that the tournament would get cancelled, which is still just a surreal moment. That was really the moment that many in the US, at least those that were sports fans, realized just how damn serious Covid was. It was roughly the same time Rudy Gobert tested positive and thereafter the NBA and NHL soon shut their seasons down. Losing March Madness seems unreal, but such a present, everpresent really, memory.
2021
= This tournament was still imapcted by Covid, as while there were limited fans, all of the games were in Indianapolis, but more interestingly, they crunched the schedule slightly. As someone who suffers the Sunday Blues more than most, the fact that the weekends set of games would also end on Sunday, and at least that second weekend slightly earlier than the other days, was always a sore spot. Well, this year the first two rounds started on Friday and ended on Monday, and the next two started on Saturday and ended on Tuesday, and for whatever reason I learned to love this wacky schedule. It livened up Mondays and Tuesdays - generally dead days in the tournament. It made Sunday the middle of the weekend instead of the end. Not sure I would want this most years, and definitely don't want the reason why this was needed, but I didn't mind it one bit.
2022
= I've talked a couple times about watching games in bars, but I've rarely watched any games in my favorite local bar - Winberies in Princeton. There was one notable exception though, which happened this year watching the Final Four game between Duke and UNC, which was one of the strangest games in that rivalry. For one thing, this was Coach K's last season, so could be last game. UNC was a #8 seed coached hilariously by Hubert Davis. But somehow we had this in the final four. The game was great, the bar got into it way more than I expected, and in the end we all got to say goodbye to Coach K in style, with a particular Duke hater buying a roudn of shots for like 20 people (us included).
2023
= I mentioned my friend who is a giant Purdue fan earlier, and for those with good memories they will remember 2023 the year where Purdue got a #1 seed behind player of the year Zack Edey, but then lost to FDU in the second 1-16 matchup. The first round a couple of us planned to drive down to DC where he was also visiting our friend Nikhil in his new apartment for the weekend. The Purdue friend got there first and was watching while we were driving down, with Purdue's whole loss taking place on our drive, with us facetiming them often and watching him got progressively more inebriated. Of course, when we arrived we drowned us all in his sorrows some more, went out for a bit and then got back to the DC friend's apartment around 1:30am, with him very, very drunk. In the end we had to care for him a bit, collectively we downed most of a fiarly expensive bottle of scotch, and then the kicker was we were supposed to meet his new girlfriend the next day for brunch, a brunch we were all somewhat hungover for, and the Purdue fan way hungover. That girlfriend is now his wife.
2024
= For years we've had an office March Madness pool. Hilariously the Partner / Head of the US office won teh first year (he gave the money back to us to do a happy hour in the office). Somehow, I won the second year because I felt bad that Virginia lost as the #1 seed in 2018 and picked them to win the title in 2019. I was the only one who did in the pool, and despite picking no other final four teams correctly, In 2024 there was the same similarities of feeling bad for the team that was the #1 seed that lost the #16 the year before, that was still very good returning mostly the same team and got the #1 seed again. Granted, I wasn't stupid - UCONN was a monster, so I picked them to win, but Purdue to make the final, and viola! I guess what I'm saying is I have a foolproof strategy for any year following a year with a 1-16 upset.
2025
= I was in Toronto for the Thursday and Friday of the first round, supposed to fly back home Friday evening, but there was a storm adn the flight was delayed five hours and instaed of doing that I decided to just fly back Saturday morning. So instead, I schlepped up to Vaughan to the Moose and Firkin and much to my surprise, other than the one TV showing hockey, every other one showed March Madness. It was a delight watching Canadians delight in this random very American-specific sports endeavor, and more than anything that is the real story of these stories, the collective brilliance watching this tournament together. Here's to 2026 and adding another memory.
