Every year millions of people around the world fill out their “educated” guesses on a final 64-team bracket sheet for the NCAA March Madness college basketball tournament. However, this year seemed to be more popular than any other. Warren Buffett, an American investor, offered one billion dollars to whoever filled out the perfect bracket, one with no losses. Since 1998, out of the thirty million or so brackets that were completed, no one has ever successfully accomplished choosing a perfect bracket. The odds of winning the one billion dollars were one in nine quintillion. According to past statistics, participants had a better chance of winning the lottery a few times in a row as compared to winning this challenge. As of March 20, 2014, eighty-four percent of the participants who filled out a bracket had already lost the challenge.

With many great teams having faced each other in this year’s tournament, it was hard to select the winning teams. In the beginning round, many of the favorites had already been eliminated. As of March 20, 2014, there were four additional major upsets, and the second round had not even ended. One glaring example of the unexpected involved the ACC powerhouse, Duke University’s Blue Devils versus the relatively unknown Mercer Bears. Mercer, despite their inexperience, showed up in with confidence and big expectations. Kevin Canevari, a shooting guard for the Bears, propelled the number fourteen seed, Mercer, to upset Duke, the number three seed in the Southwestern bracket. This nail-biter ended 78-71 with the Bears on top. Duke was the obvious favorite, and particularly so, given the vast experience of Duke’s Coach Mike Krzyzewski or “Coach K” as he is commonly known, with his 983 wins over the past thirty-nine years with a 76% won-loss ratio. Duke had a record of 99-34 in NCAA tournament history and has appeared in the final four 15 different times. Duke owns four national championships, while Mercer has yet to see the big time. At tournament time, its anybody’s game.

President Obama, who had not picked an NCAA champion since 2009, when he predicted that the North Carolina Tar Heels would take home the win with them, selected Michigan State as his National Champion. Prior to the tournament, the Spartans had a 26-8 record and a demonstrated potential to win it all. However, past success was no indication of future success in this year’s tourney. It was a crapshoot and anybody’s game each and every time the buzzer sounded signifying the start of a new game.

Many great players participated in this year’s March Madness tournament. Shabazz Napier, arguably the best point guard in the nation, led the UConn Huskies to win this year’s National Championship. Shabazz, a twenty-two year-old from Massachusetts, is six feet tall and averaged eighteen points a game with a season free throw average of 87%. Napier, who normed six rebounds and five assists per game is one of the best all around collegiate basketball athletes, excelling in both offense and defense. Another star on the collegiate level is Tyler Ennis, who weighs in at about 180 pounds and is six foot, two inches. Ennis played guard for Syracuse and averaged around thirteen points a game. Tyler maintained a 77% free throw percentage, which demonstrates consistency. Although the Orangemen, who lost unpredictably to the number eleven seed, Dayton, did not have their usual success reaching far into the tournament, Ennis evinced leadership on the floor throughout the season.

One of the greatest attributes of the NCAA Final Four Tournament, and reasons why spectators and viewers look forward with enthusiasm to March Madness, is the uncertainty of who will prevail at the end. The determination and heart of the college athlete is immeasurable. For this reason, it is virtually impossible to anticipate with any degree of reliability, the likelihood of success in any given match. There were many great basketball teams that participated in this year’s tournament. With the multitude of unexpected results, many of which ended at the buzzer, mostly every single game was thrilling to watch. This year’s tournament showed that not only the best teams win. The teams that worked the hardest in practice, prepared diligently for their games, and gave it their all, only put them on par with every other team in the tournament. To win this tournament, teams had to push harder than that, they needed to have that extra special person, who played that extraordinary game, along with a little luck. As Vince Lombardi stated, “The price of success is hard work, dedication to the job at hand, and the determination that whether we win or lose, we have applied the best of ourselves to the task at hand.”