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The excitement of March Madness is officially here, and all the fun will wind up in Glendale with the men’s Final Four on April 6 and the NCAA championship game on April 8 at State Farm Stadium. The NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament is a single-elimination tournament of 68 teams that compete in seven rounds for the national championship. The matchups are played in cities around the country in a FLURRY of games. The women’s basketball tournament follows the same format.
One of the many reasons fans love to watch is for the opportunity to see upsets as smaller underdog schools go up against basketball giants. This year has been no exception as the first men’s round saw Duquesne pull off a huge upset win over BYU and Oakland scored a win over Kentucky. Many fans fill out brackets with their predictions of who will win each game and ultimately the tournament—but after the first round of games and the upsets, very few of those brackets are left with accurate predictions.
As for our home state, Arizona men’s and women’s teams and Grand Canyon men’s basketball all won in the first round of play. The Arizona women and GCU men lost second round games to higher seeded opponents. The Arizona men’s basketball team is headed to the Sweet 16. The first NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament was in 1939 and was held every year until the 2019-20 season when it was canceled that year due to the coronavirus pandemic. It started with just eight teams when Oregon beat Ohio State for the first title. The tournament doubled to 16 teams in 1951 and continued expanding until 2011 when it became the 68-team format we know today.
The term March Madness was first used to refer to basketball in 1939, but it became associated with the NCAA tournament in 1982 when a CBS broadcaster used the term. The year was NOTABLE for another reason as the first NCAA Division 1 women’s basketball championship tournament was played in 1982.
Something for Everyone at the SciTech Festival
The Arizona SciTech Festival is in full swing with hundreds of fun-n-fabulous events all over the state at the end of March and throughout April.
The festival kicked off in January and sparks young minds on everything STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math).
Such a DYNAMIC festival takes a whole lotta teamwork, from the SciTech staff to event organizers to the two dozen sponsors. “It’s been so great. This is my first SciTech Festival season,” says Events Coordinator Makenna Littell. A few of her favorite events so far have been STEM Fest at the famous Barrett-Jackson auto auction, ASU’s Open Door events, the Verde Valley SciTech Fest and the Buckeye Air Fair. “It’s been so incredible to get to see how many people we actually reach and to meet the festival coordinators,” she adds.
The Signature Events all have multiple collaborators, are free and offer something for just about everyone. One of the happenings Littell is looking forward to is the Gila River Community Earth Day Celebration on April 19. The celebration is from 10 a.m.–2 p.m. at 168 Skill Center Rd. in Sacaton. Another great event is Arts for the Argo, which is an oceanic research sailboat with connections to SciTech. That is happening April 18 from 11 a.m.–1:30 p.m. on the State Farm lawn area, 400 E. Rio Salado Pkwy.
For all the SciTech Festival events, go to scitechinstitute.org/calendar/.
