March Madness infects Penn State students


Thursday, March 19, 1998	March Madness infects Penn State students By MARK FITZGERALD Collegian Sports Writer Doctors and scientists all around the globe are frantically searching for a cure for an uncontrollable disease that broke out in the Midwest and quickly spread East, South, West and North. To date, nothing can be taken for this disease. Once you have come in contact with its symptoms madness will surely overwhelm your body. Luckily this disease is only seasonal. For it is only in March one will show full-blown symptoms. The disease is the dreaded March Madness. And its crippling effects have rattled every basketball junkie in the country.
`Official NCAA Basketball Tournament Home Page`	Sixty-four teams, 63 games, endless buzzer beaters, joy, agony and in the end a champion. The purity of basketball's greatest showcase is presently being played out at sights around the country. For the typical basketball fan, that means countless hours parked in front of the television watching Greg Gumbel decide what you will be doing for the next two hours. Will it be a No. 8 seed vs. a No. 9 seed in the Midwest region or will Gumbel be so inclined to send his loyal viewers to that No. 2 seed vs. No. 15 seed out West in Boise? This year's NCAA tournament, unlike its predecessors, has lured its viewers into an epic soap opera.
*"It's amazing. Sitting on the couch watching Syracuse escape defeat from Iona and then just seconds later watching Bryce Drew and Valparaiso stun Mississippi at the buzzer."* - Rob Senior, freshman-broadcast journalism	"It's amazing," said Rob Senior (freshman-broadcast journalism). "Sitting on the couch watching Syracuse escape defeat from Iona and then just seconds later watching Bryce Drew and Valparaiso stun Mississippi at the buzzer." Senior is not the lone student infected with the disease. Nick Marotta (sophomore-electrical engineering) called this past weekend's action "incredible." Incredible may be an understatement. The first weekend alone created enough excitement for a whole tournament. There have been upsets, buzzer beaters and more upsets. The first weekend's casualties included highly seeded Kansas, Cincinnati, South Carolina, Michigan and Mississippi. Their losses proved deadly for many office pool draws. Those works of art have quickly gone down the drain thanks to such Cinderellas as Rhode Island, Valpo, Washington, and West Virginia. Many people had Kansas in the national championship game and still more wondered what ever happened to that flawless matchup zone at Temple. Eighty-two points later, upstart West Virginia spotted it on a flight back to Philadelphia for the summer. Only the NCAA Tournament makes winners losers and unknowns headliners. The Gamecocks of South Carolina haven't come to play in their past two tournament experiences. As a No. 2 seed last year they fell to little-known Coppin State. This year the Richmond Spiders, a team that always seems to stun a top seed everytime it appears in the field, once again had its way with the big boys knocking off South Carolina.
`Collegian Graphic on Tournament Cinderellas`	And few will forget the image of Drew and father/coach Homer Drew embracing each other after Bryce hit the unthinkable shot to beat mighty Mississippi to keep Valpo's dream still very much alive. So now it is on to the Sweet 16. Tonight the action for yet another manic weekend begins. Win or lose, their experience and their fans' excitement can allow them to look back fondly at their dose of madness and say, "I was there." "The tournament is like Christmas," Lyle Yablonsky (freshman-communications) said. "In fact it is better than Christmas. The excitement turns into sheer joy."