In 2020, March Madness was unfortunately cancelled due to COVID-19, and the sports season was greatly affected. But March Madness has been confirmed for 2021, and with many basketball teams unable to play games due to the virus what can we expect for this year’s tournament? 

Unfortunately COVID-19 is still very prevalent and even with the vaccine being distributed we will likely see it stick around for a while. This means that it’s possible that lots of March Madness games could be severely postponed due to infection within the teams. It is possible that the whole tournament goes smoothly but it’s very likely that the schedule we are used to won’t be what we see throughout the tournament this year. 

According to the NCAA, all games will be played in Indiana with most games being played in Indianapolis, so games won’t be played at home stadiums and the final games won’t be filled to the brim with fans. Unfortunately, the insane hype energy of the Final Four won’t be as prominent this year, and fans won’t be able to watch in the stadiums, but every game will still be streamed for everyone to watch online. 

Seedings for the tournament are up in the air as well. With this season being insane, many teams went weeks without games or practice. After weeks of incomplete practices and very few games, each team will be very low on practice and coaches will be scrambling to have their teams ready by March. The pressure is on the players and the coaches especially trying to pick up the broken pieces of teams with no practice. 

This will definitely affect the performance of many teams and former juggernauts might be knocked down. Expect a lot of upsets this year. 

Of course everyone will be filling out their brackets. Gonzaga and Villanova are looking very promising

to take the tournament this year but Kentucky, and Virginia are looking very good as well. But of course like every year I will be putting UC winning the bracket and you should too! UC has looked very promising with Keith Williams improving an insane amount during the off season. And the team is doing very well considering the recent events with quarantine.

Overall this year’s March Madness bracket will be very different and hopefully we will see some major upsets this year.