April is already here, but March Madness has only just concluded. With the men’s tournament concluding on Monday, April 4th, and the women’s tournament concluding on Tuesday, April 5th, the champions for the 2015-2016 NCAA season have been crowned.

Despite being second favorites to win the title, the Michigan St. Spartans lost in the first round to the Middle Tennessee Blue Raiders, which may have been the biggest upset of the tournament, but certainly not the only one. The first round of the NCAA tournament had a record-tying total of 13 upsets. Anyone who follows college basketball knows the NCAA tournament is always filled with upsets. That’s what makes it so interesting.

However, the first round of the competition is usually the one with the best and most upsets. It’s because better teams are matched with worse teams. For example, Michigan St. was ranked #2 and were defeated by Middle Tennessee, who were ranked #15. The second round of the NCAA tournament only had 3 upsets, a big decrease from 13 in the first round. Of course, there were half as many games in this round, but the number is astounding nevertheless. The second round of the tournament ended with 5th seed Indiana defeating 4th seed Kentucky, 7th seed Wisconsin defeating 2nd seed Xavier, and 11th seed Gonzaga defeating 3rd seed Utah.

The Sweet 16 saw all number one seeded teams advance, as the Oregon Ducks, Kansas Jayhawks, North Carolina Tar Heels, and Virginia Cavaliers all claimed victory. Unfortunately, the North Carolina Tar Heels were the only team to make it out of the Elite 8 as the Ducks lost to 2nd seed Oklahoma, the Jayhawks lost to 2nd seed Villanova, and the Cavaliers lost to 10th seed Syracuse. This marked the first time ever a 10th seed team would appear in the tournament’s Final Four. The 4th seed Duke Blue Devils failed to make it to the Elite 8, despite being 6th favorites to win it all by losing to the Oregon Ducks in the Sweet 16. 6th seed Notre Dame also made a surprise run to the Elite 8 before losing to North Carolina.

The Syracuse Orange’s historic appearance in the Final Four was a precursor for a weekend that saw many records shattered. The Villanova Wildcats went into their matchup against the Oklahoma Sooners as 2-point favorites to win. Earlier in the season, the Wildcats were 5-point favorites to defeat the Sooners, but lost the game by 23 points. However, the Wildcats played well when it mattered. The Wildcats went on to defeat the Sooners by a margin of 44 points, the biggest margin of victory in any Final Four game. Buddy Hield, Oklahoma’s star player, went from an Elite 8 performance of 39 points to only 9 points in the Final Four game. The previous record was 34 by Ohio State in 1961 and Michigan State in 1979. Villanova’s victory could be credited to its field goal percentage of 71.4, shattering the previous record of 63.3 percent by that same ’61 Ohio State team. UNC’s Final Four victory was less impressive as they only defeated Syracuse by a margin of 17 points. Nevertheless, this year’s Final Four games were called the worst in history. Many fans believed there was no competition and that the wait between the Elite 8 and Final Four rounds were not worth it.

Judging from Las Vegas odds, the championship matchup should have been the Kansas Jayhawks versus the Michigan St. Spartans. However, it ended up being the North Carolina Tar Heels and the Villanova Wildcats with the Tar Heels being slight favorites over the Wildcats. Oddsshark.com had the Tar Heels as 3-point favorites. With seniors Marcus Paige and Brice Johnson, the latter one of the tournament’s best players, leading the way, the Tar Heels seemed well on their way to their sixth championship and their third under coach Roy Williams.

The game was closely contested, as both teams traded baskets late into the game. Paige nailed a three-point basket with 4.7 seconds left in the second half to tie the score at 74. With the crowd still in awe, Villanova took the ball down the court and put the ball into the hands of junior forward Kris Jenkins, who rained a shot from the three point line as time expired to give Villanova the victory and its first championship since 1985. Coincidentally, that championship, its first in school history, was also played against North Carolina. 

The women’s side of the bracket was all about inevitability. The Connecticut Lady Huskies, led by three-time AP Player of the Year Breanna Stewart, steamrolled their competition to the tune of seventy-four consecutive victories leading up to its championship matchup against the Syracuse Orange. The Lady Huskies, winners of the previous three national championships, were pegged as 24-point favorites by oddschecker.com.
As it turns out, UConn was undersold, as it cruised to a thirty-one point victory in a 82-51 effort against the Orange. The results were more indicative of their season, though. The Lady Huskies went into the game with an average margin of victory of 39.9 points per game, the largest in the country, scoring 88.2 points per game and allowing only 48.3 points allowed per game along the way; both were tops in the country. Among other categories they led in were assists per game at 21.6 and field-goal percentage at 53.0 percent.