🏀 The Madness Has Already Started

The NCAA Tournament is one of the best sports events of the year — but don’t sleep on the glory of Championship Week. [View in browser]( [FOX SPORTS INSIDER WITH MARTIN ROGERS] In today’s FOX Sports Insider: The Madness of March starts earlier than you think with Championship Week ... could Tom Brady end up in Dallas? ... and we relive one of the best shots in college basketball history on its nine-year anniversary. I swear, one of these years, I am going to go to Las Vegas around this time and binge on one of my guilty pleasures. I’ll head out there on a Friday night, and we’ll just see what happens. Maybe the good times will be so epic that the whole thing will last all the way into the following weekend. Now, given that I’m 41 and boring, my Sin City adventure probably isn’t going to look too much like The Hangover. While it would be cool to hang out with Mike Tyson (less so, his tiger), the type of excessive Vegas blowout I am talking about revolves around college basketball. For my secret sporting love is going on right now — this part of the college hoops season when anything is possible and dreams are both alive and magnified. Of course, the Tournament, with all its madness and mayhem, bracketology and underdog magic, has massive resonance and the ability to transfix the nation across three weekends. [STORY IMAGE 1] However, for me, the week we are in the midst of, where the sports landscape can’t swing its elbows without bumping into another conference championship taking place, is the highlight of the campaign. As heavyweights, hopefuls and a few no-hopers slug it out for conference bragging rights, an elevated tournament seed or just a shot at seasonal survival, you can find more thrills, narrative and entertainment than even the NCAA bracket itself. So why Vegas? Good question. A lot of people head to the Nevada desert across the first two tournament weekends, despite no actual games being played there, because it is a great place to gorge on basketball. With 48 games across four days on the Thursday-through-Sunday of the opening week, a sportsbook with countless screens the size of an average home, filled with other like-minded fans, plus the chance for a sneaky proposition or two, is many a fanatic’s idea of nirvana. Well, during Championship Week, you still get all that, plus the opportunity to geek out on even more live basketball in person. Vegas is the only city in the nation that plays host to four conference tournaments, and this would have been an especially worthwhile year to go, with some of the top teams in the nation on display. [STORY IMAGE 2] Last week saw the Mountain West do its thing at UNLV’s Thomas and Mack Center, just off The Strip. San Diego State, who three weeks back were the last undefeated Div. I team in America, got upturned by Utah State in the title game, ending any chance of them securing a tournament top seed. Tonight sees the culmination of the West Coast Conference, with the mighty Gonzaga — a genuine contender to cut down the nets early next month — taking on St. Mary’s in the final at the Orleans Arena. The same venue will host the Western Athletic Conference starting on Thursday, while the Pac-12 event gets underway at T-Mobile Arena, starting tomorrow. In the past in Vegas, there have been games from three tournaments all on the same day. It is a little more spread out now, but you can still easily bounce between two venues and back again, and when you’re done with that, bounce once more into a comfy sportsbook recliner and catch everything else. [STORY IMAGE 3] Or try to. There is a lot to catch, with Tuesday alone featuring 18 games from 10 tournaments in 12 states plus the nation’s capital. The drama is human and present and intoxicating. You see dreams come true and others thwarted. You see the kind of effort that comes from players knowing this could be their last game, not just in this uniform, but ever. The system is not entirely equitable. In less heralded leagues, weaker teams that get hot can play themselves in at the expense of consistent performers who delivered all season long. It is not perfect, but it is a ton of fun and frankly, for the casual fan whose March hardwood experience begins next Thursday, you don’t know what you’re missing. Don’t just take my word for it. FOX Sports bracketology expert Mike DeCourcy assured me that loving this particular week of college basketball was not based off flawed logic. [STORY IMAGE 4] “Once the channel universe on all of our televisions became more vast, it became apparent there was no more glorious week for a college basketball fan than selection week,” DeCourcy told me, via text message. “What could be better for a basketball fan than more basketball? “So many get caught up in what’s lost as a result of this format, the precious gift of the NCAA tournament automatic berth going to the champion of three days rather than three months, and they miss what a wonderful spectacle that creates. This is my favorite week of the year. The next three are very close in the discussion, but give me wall-to-wall college basketball and I am a happy man.” One time in the 2000s, DeCourcy sat in his house and watched all or part of 32 different games on the college tournament Friday, a feat which at the same time manages to be worryingly obsessive, mightily impressive and completely insane. And, now that I think about it, totally the sort of thing I would do while my wife is at work and forget to tell her about. Now, where’s that remote? [STORY IMAGE 5] Here’s what others have said ... Mark Titus, FOX Sports: “If you’re a neutral fan and you just want to turn on some college basketball and be the most entertained you can possibly be, the Big East is the conference. They have six of the top 30 offenses [in the country]. The Big East is basically the Big Ten, if the Big Ten could score. Marquette’s a ton of fun. ... Markus Howard is electric. He scores a ton of points, and they don’t play defense. What more do you want if you’re just tuning and wanting to be entertained for two hours? ... If you don’t care who wins any of these games, and you’re just a fan of throwing on some basketball and being entertained, with Gus Johnson on the call? It’s gotta be the Big East.” Ky McKeon, Sports Illustrated: “Championship week is upon us and the autobids are starting to pour in. Already we’ve seen heartbreak — as MVC tournament favorite Northern Iowa fell to Drake in the quarterfinals — and jubilation, as Utah State left no doubt about its presence in the field of 68, knocking off San Diego State in the Mountain West final. With the madness of March comes ‘bid stealers,’ teams like Utah State who make others like Texas and NC State nervous about their chances at punching an at-large bid. We’re sure to see more craziness as the week goes on, but that’s always been the charm of the best month of the year.” Jay Wright, Villanova head coach (via USA Today): “There's pressure in these games, an intensity in these games here at the Garden that's like nowhere else. Believe it or not, sometimes when you go to a first round NCAA game after playing here in a championship game it's actually a downer. That has affected us in the past. The intensity and the environment in the Garden is far more than an early NCAA tournament game. You get in a first round game, it's quiet, it's in the middle of the day and you were just in the greatest environment in basketball ever.” [IN OTHER WORDS] - Shohei Ohtani is mended but undaunted — and ready to resume his quest to dominate baseball from the mound and the batter’s box, [Sports Illustrated’s Tom Verducci writes](. - Twenty years later, one injury just ahead of the tournament remains college basketball’s biggest “What if?”. [Jeff Eisenberg of Yahoo Sports unravels]( what might have been. - [ESPN’s NFL crew identifies]( the best (and the worst) free-agent signings for every team over the past five years, with NFL free agency set to begin on March 18. [THE BRADY HUNCH] [THE BRADY HUNCH] Could the Tom Brady and Dak Prescott contract situations intersect? The odds would seem to be against Brady landing with America’s Team — in fact, FOX Bet puts the chances at 45-to-1, less likely than the Chicago Bears (+2200), Detroit Lions (+3300), or New York Giants (+3500), the latter of which is all but unfathomable. But in the wake of a report that the Cowboys have sent a new contract proposal to Prescott, [NBC Sports’ Mike Florio put this]( into the universe: “Here’s a potential wildcard: Tom Brady. A week ago, he wasn’t being linked to any teams in the NFC. Now that the 49ers chatter seems to be real (the 49ers still haven’t shot it down, and they easily could), maybe Cowboys owner and G.M. Jerry Jones will decide that life is all too short to not go all in, and maybe Jerry goes all in with Brady.” And now, that’s kind of all we want to see ... [THE INTERNET IS UNDEFEATED] [THE INTERNET IS UNDEFEATED]( Can you feel it? The building anticipation? The sense that everything this month could come down to the last second? That’s the Madness creeping in, friends, and it’s a very good feeling. On this fine Tuesday, take a moment to watch one of the most iconic game winners of all time: Kemba Walker’s buzzer beater against Pitt in the quarterfinals of the 2011 Big East Tournament, nine years ago today. [VIEWER'S GUIDE] Saint Mary’s Gaels vs. Gonzaga Bulldogs (ESPN, 9 p.m. ET) The West Coast Conference tournament concludes tonight, as the Bulldogs look to finish strong ahead of the Big Dance, where they’re all but locked in as a one seed. Los Angeles Clippers at Golden State Warriors (TNT, 10:30 p.m. ET) The Dubs hope to have Stephen Curry, who’s battling the flu after his return from injury, in the lineup as they aim for their first win of the year against Kawhi Leonard’s Clippers. WWE Backstage (FS1, 11 p.m. ET) The Phenomenal One, AJ Styles, joins Renee Young, Booker T, Xavier Woods and Ember Moon on this week’s edition of WWE Backstage as his feud with The Undertaker reaches a fever pitch. [BET OF THE DAY] [BET OF THE DAY] Odds provided by [FOX Bet]( Any 4 of these 5 teams to win: Gonzaga, North Dakota, Robert Morris, UIC, Northeastern: +450 By now, you’re well aware you’ll have all of the college basketball you could possibly want to watch over the next couple of weeks — and rather than focus on any one game, why not take a swing at the whole slate? The above slew of potential winners includes a healthy mix of favorites and underdogs, which should give you that little bit of an extra rooting interest in the conference tournaments today and all this week. A new FOX Sports app and website is coming. [Click here]( to be notified when the reimagined app is available. [WHAT THEY SAID] “There is no way around hard work. Embrace it. You have to put in the hours because there’s always something which you can improve.” — Roger Federer [FOLLOW FOX SPORTS] [Twitter]( [Facebook]( [YouTube]( [Instagram]( Download the FOX Sports app for live scores and streaming [App Store]( [Google Play]( Available on: [tvOS] [Roku] [fireTV] [androidtv] [XBOX] [Google chromecast] [tvOS] [fireTV] [androidtv] [XBOX] [Google chromecast] Forwarded this message? [Sign up](. Amazon, Fire, and all related marks are trademarks of Amazon.com, Inc. or its affiliates. Trademark & Copyright Notice: ™ and © 2020 FOX Media LLC and FOX Sports Interactive Media, LLC. All rights reserved. Please do not reply to this message. If you do not wish to receive emails like this in the future, please [unsubscribe](. FOX Sports respects your privacy. Click [here]( to view our Privacy Policy. FOX.com Business & Legal Affairs - Manager Digital Media P.O. Box 900 Beverly Hills, CA 90213-0900