March Madness spreading around campus
By: Evan Bohnenblust
Issue date: 3/24/06 Section: News
Even with the sunshine and accompanying spring weather just starting to appear this month, many students remain indoors glued to ESPN. Yes, it's once again time for the yearly sports phenomenon of March Madness, the contest to determine the nation's best college basketball team.
Of course, along with the actual games and enthusiastic support for rabid college basketball fans, many students - including plenty of such fans here at Furman - also take up the challenge of predicting the entire tournament by creating brackets in which they predict the winners of each region and the overall contest.
While there may be many smaller competitions here on campus - either for bragging rights or even prizes -- two large competitions have been set up for the entire Furman community.
Last year, current sophomore philosophy major Jonathan Borders created a March Madness bracket pool for his hall, but this year he opened the group up to all Furman students. Borders received 15 entries, including four females, one of whom is an Admissions staff member.
For his contest, a five dollar entry fee was required, and both first and second place winners will receive a cash prize, Borders said. While his competition is relatively small now, in the future he hopes that his tournament will continue to grow.
When asked for advice about how students can create a winning bracket, Borders said that watching the games and doing some research online is a great way to start. His personal picks for the Final Four are University of Connecticut, Duke, Gonzaga and Ohio State, though he adds that last year Gonzaga's failure "ruined" his bracket.
Kevin Treu, professor of computer science, has also created a pool, but in this case the brackets can be entered online. This pool, though, has quite a history, beginning 12 years ago on paper and then moving to the Internet nine years ago. The number of contest entrants has also increased, expanding from students and faculty in the CS department to a campus-wide contest which this year has received 112 entries, about half of which are students.
Of course, along with the actual games and enthusiastic support for rabid college basketball fans, many students - including plenty of such fans here at Furman - also take up the challenge of predicting the entire tournament by creating brackets in which they predict the winners of each region and the overall contest.
While there may be many smaller competitions here on campus - either for bragging rights or even prizes -- two large competitions have been set up for the entire Furman community.
Last year, current sophomore philosophy major Jonathan Borders created a March Madness bracket pool for his hall, but this year he opened the group up to all Furman students. Borders received 15 entries, including four females, one of whom is an Admissions staff member.
For his contest, a five dollar entry fee was required, and both first and second place winners will receive a cash prize, Borders said. While his competition is relatively small now, in the future he hopes that his tournament will continue to grow.
When asked for advice about how students can create a winning bracket, Borders said that watching the games and doing some research online is a great way to start. His personal picks for the Final Four are University of Connecticut, Duke, Gonzaga and Ohio State, though he adds that last year Gonzaga's failure "ruined" his bracket.
Kevin Treu, professor of computer science, has also created a pool, but in this case the brackets can be entered online. This pool, though, has quite a history, beginning 12 years ago on paper and then moving to the Internet nine years ago. The number of contest entrants has also increased, expanding from students and faculty in the CS department to a campus-wide contest which this year has received 112 entries, about half of which are students.