“March Madness” is a term used to describe both the conference and national basketball tournaments. In addition, the term “madness” refers to when, on occasion, either a top ranked, highly seeded or highly regarded team gets upset in the previously mentioned tournaments within the month of March. This applied to both the men’s and women’s games.
March Madness originated in 1939 with only eight teams in men’s basketball. It has since been expanded to 68 teams since 2011. For women’s basketball, March Madness began in 1982 with twelve teams. Since 2022, it has followed the same format as the men’s tournament with 68 teams participating.
While March Madness refers to major universities in the NCAA (National Collegiate Association of Athletics) or Division I, the same applies to all levels of collegiate sports, including NJCAA (National Junior Collegiate Association of Athletics), which Lake Land College (LLC) is a part of since its inception during the 1966-67 academic year.
NJCAA is the governing body of community colleges nationally and is divided into 24 regions and three divisions. LLC is currently in Region 24 Conference and in Division 2. NJCAA was formed on May 14, 1938.
Up until 1975, NJCAA only sponsored men’s sports. In 1975, NJCAA supported women’s sports to comply with Title IX, which was passed in 1972 to prohibit gender discrimination.
David Johnson, who has been the head women’s basketball coach since 1998, has plenty of experience in March Madness. The Lady Lakers have won the national championship in 2021 and averaged over 21 wins a year under his tutelage. Additionally, the women’s team won the national championship from 2000-02 and 2005.
In preparation for March Madness, Johnson explained, “The biggest preparation comes through experience during the season. At tourney time, studying your opponent through film and player reports is crucial.”
He elaborated on the differences between the conference and national tournaments, “In conference, we know our opponents and we will play in a familiar arena. As where in the national tournament it is a draw who you play and at an arena, we have not played in.”
He expounded on how March Madness changed over the years, “They have made changes in the format to how they seed teams and the number of teams in the tournament. Fun changes over the years have been the change in uniform styles, as I have seen lots of variations!”
Let us hope both the men’s and women’s teams are successful during both the conference and national tournament and for the men’s team to win the national title for the first time since 2012 under Coach Cedric Brown. The men’s team also won the national title during its inaugural season in 1967, 1973 and 1997.
