March Madness 2025: The Only Time People Pretend to Care About College Basketball

The Madness

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Ah, March Madness—the time of year when productivity plummets, office Wi-Fi mysteriously slows to a crawl, and people who couldn’t name a single player in January suddenly become die-hard fans of schools they didn’t attend.

The Bracket: Your Annual Reminder That You Know Nothing

Filling out a bracket is a sacred tradition, where experts and casual fans alike submit their best guesses based on gut feelings, mascot strength, and which team has the funniest name. Some claim to have “done their research,” which is code for watching half of a SportsCenter segment and picking Duke because “they always win, right?” Meanwhile, that one guy in your office who chose teams based on uniform colors is somehow leading the pool.

The Cinderella Story: America’s Favorite Temporary Underdog

Every year, there’s a Cinderella team—a scrappy underdog from a school that sounds made up, like East-West Northern Tech. They’ll stun the world by upsetting a top seed, causing sports analysts to pretend they always believed in them. Unfortunately, after two rounds, they’ll get crushed by a basketball factory like Kansas, and everyone will promptly forget their name.

March Madness The Coaches: Yelling Their Way to Victory

March Madness is a showcase of coaching excellence, which mostly consists of pacing aggressively, ripping off suit jackets, and screaming at referees like they just insulted their mothers. Camera crews love zooming in on a coach’s face after a bad call, capturing expressions that range from “mild stroke” to “about to throw a chair.”

The Fans: From Die-Hard to Delusional

Nothing brings out passion like March Madness. Students who couldn’t be bothered to attend a single regular-season game are suddenly painting their faces and risking frostbite by storming the streets after an upset win. Alumni who haven’t set foot on campus since the Bush administration suddenly refer to their team as “we,” as if their financial contributions to the school’s parking fund helped secure that buzzer-beater.

The Commercials: 75% Insurance Ads, 25% Sad Stories

If you’ve watched any March Madness coverage, you’ve seen the same five commercials on repeat. There’s the tearjerking NCAA ad about a former college athlete who overcame adversity, followed immediately by a relentless loop of insurance commercials featuring talking animals, quirky agents, and deeply discounted bundle packages. By the Sweet 16, you’ll be able to recite them all from memory.

The Championship Game: A Monday Night Letdown

After weeks of chaos, heartbreak, and busted brackets, it all comes down to the championship game—a high-stakes battle that, for some reason, is scheduled on a Monday night at 9 p.m. Eastern. By the second half, half the country is asleep, and the other half is pretending to care as they calculate how much money they lost in the office pool.

Conclusion: See You Next Year

Once the confetti settles and the winning team’s star player announces they’re leaving for the NBA draft, March Madness will fade away, and college basketball will return to being that sport people ignore until next March. Until then, we’ll all pretend we saw that upset coming and swear we’ll do better on our brackets next year. Spoiler alert: We won’t.