I’m going to familiarize you with March Madness lingo.

These are the most common words and phrases associated with the greatest basketball tournament on the planet.

March Madness or The Big Dance is a single-elimination postseason playoff played round-by-round over a three-week period until a single champion is crowned.

The furious pace is full of upsets, buzzer beaters, rambunctious celebrations and also the inevitable heart wrenching losses.

Round 1, features teams from high and mid-major conferences at the top of the tournament bracket.
The lowest seed teams at the very bottom of the bracket are refer to as Cinderellas by the media and on many occasions, like in the Disney Story, a Cinderellawill get to dance with a Prince.

Before becoming a major basketball power house, the Gonzaga University Bulldogs used to be one of those Cinderellas teams.

The greatest boost to a Cinderella is known as Selection Sunday. It can set recruiting for their basketball programs for years because their teams will attract at least two or more players which were not highly recruited by Division I major basketball programs.

These guys are highly motivated and March Madness is their shot at paying back the major basketball programs which ignored them during recruiting, not to mention the incalculable exposure that they’re going to bring to their schools nationally.

§ Round 2, thirty-two teams remain

§ Round 3, sixteen teams (dubbed the Sweet 16)

§ Round 4, eight teams (Elite Eight);

§ Round 5, four teams (Final Four)

§ And Round 6, two teams fight for the National Championship

If you were able to absorb all of this information, then…Congratulations are in Order!

Because you passed Bracketology 101!

One of my fondest March Madness memories is the 1985 Villanova Wildcats winning the National Title, by beating the heavily favorite Georgetown Hoyas.

Growing up in Philly we use to watch the Wildcats play at the old Philadelphia Palestra and thanks to one of my Brothers, we got a chance to break bread with some of those guys.

The guy who impressed us the most was Eddie Pinckney.

Everyone called him Easy Ed because he always had smile on his face and seem to be in a good mood.

Pinckney went on to play in the NBA for twelve years and every time I saw him on television, I would smile myself, thinking back at the time when Easy Edand his Wildcats got the better of the Georgetown Hoyas in that title game.