Chalk Talk
We are at the point in the NCAA “March Madness” tournament that I like to consider as the half way point of the tournament. Or, even more accurate, I guess, is to say it is the END of tournament #1 and the beginning of the rest of the tournament. The earlier part of the tournament on that first week is when the underdog teams from those small schools get their shots at playing the big name teams from the big time programs.
Those small schools from the smaller conferences, playing with those hugest of chips on their shoulders, add so much to the color and excitement of the first week of the tournament, with their often funny sounding nicknames, their small school charm, their enthusiastic fan bases, and their sometimes pretty darn good basketball teams.
These small schools (who are usually seeded somewhere in the double digits) are often good enough to beat some of those schools from the bigger name conferences, and this season’s first week was no exception, as at least ten double digit seeded teams won out over a lower seeded team in their first games. As the American populous fills out its NCAA tournament brackets. there is always that specter of whether or not to put down a small school high seed as beating the big school low seed. March Madness’ week one often succeeds for just that reason. No one for sure knows which one of the underdogs is gonna win, and which one of the big dogs is gonna lose.
Inevitably, there are upsets of that kind EVERY year. And there isn’t a single expert who can figure out exactly WHICH one of those teams is going to be the big name team who loses and which of those small names is going to be the one who pulls off the upset. The experts try to do this “who will pull off the upset” prognostication every year, but they are always wrong in one form or another.
Why else would you have a season like this season where 14 million different brackets were filled out, and before the weekend was done, EVERY single bracket was busted and had a loss. EVERY expert in America seemingly had #2 seeded Michigan State defeating small school and #15 seeded Middle Tennessee State. If the ballot had somehow had that one correct, there was some other upset like Stephen F. Austin defeating West Virginia.
But something else always seems to kick in during the second week’s “Sweet 16” round, which as previously stated, is the second tournament within this overall tournament. That is when “chalk” kicks in. Chalk is another word to describe the idea that “all of the highest seeded teams win according to their favored status.”
When history books look back at each and every NCAA tournament, the teams that they will always see winning will be a team and or a college basketball program that was highly regarded (and usually highly seeded). Those teams that have won over the years have survived the often turbulent first week and moved on to the round of sixteen that usually included all of the real threats and only a few of the underdog teams that somehow made it that far.
At this time, the “real teams,” the teams that are “supposed to win,” always seem to take control of the tournament. There are less of the underdog teams upsetting the favorites, and more of the favorites imposing their will on the rest of the teams in the field. The teams that go the farthest are usually rated high for a reason.
That’s not to say the selection committee gets the exact order of the highest seeded teams right. They don’t, and that is why the informed sports fans can feel like they have a better idea than the experts, as they usually know that there really isn’t that much of a difference between a number one seed and a number three seed. At that point, the teams are all pretty close to each other.
When this year’s tournament started, most experts had a rough idea that there were about a dozen or so teams that had a chance to win it this year. At this point of the season, there are sixteen teams left and among those still alive, you could probably figure that about ten or so of those favorites were the same names that were thought of as the likely favorites of a week ago.
In other words, nothing has really been decided yet. All four number one seeds are still around. Most of the rest of the highest seeds (given that there are ALWAYS a few of the higher seeds that get knocked off every tournament) are still in there and still have a chance to win this thing. This year, there are NO little schools even alive anymore.
The games that are left will be played between a lot of closely matched teams that have separated themselves from the rest of the teams by surviving that first week and still being here. You could look at a blackboard and see all of the teams who are playing each other and honestly say, “yes, I’m not surprised that a single one of these teams is still here, still playing in the Sweet Sixteen.”
Yeah, there were a few upsets, but chalk has pretty much held form. Chances are that when this thing is finally over, there WILL be a team from a conference that you recognize hoisting that championship trophy.
