If you are an anybody in March, you had better know the language first and foremost. Watching the Championship Week games over the past couple days has made me realize that there are some terms and phrases that get more airtime than the latest Taylor Swift song on Kiss FM. So, I decided to post an initial list of "March Madness" terms that the uneducated had better learn before next weekend.
March Mayhem - a few underground sources tried to make this a synonym for the Madness back in the late 90's. It never caught on except with CBS's URL. Bottom line: if you see or hear this term, you're hangin' out with the wrong crowd
Big Dance - this synonym for the Madness has caught on and is used interchangeably with March Mandess. In order to avoid confusion with the NIT, Women's Tourney, or the MEAC tournament, always refer to it as the BIG Dance not just the Dance.
Cinderella - an underdog that upsets a higher seed in the Tourney. This term is a play off of the Big Dance but is thrown around too loosely. Everyone has their own definition, but in my mind a true Cinderalla is an 11 seed or below that makes the Sweet 16 at minimum.
Bubble - If you don't how this term relates to March Madness, how did you find this blog? Did you stumble into it hoping to find user cheat codes for Zelda 64? In recent years we've seen The Bubble evolve from just "on the bubble" to all sorts of prepositions like 'in', 'around', 'outside'. Once again, this term has been tortured (or evolved) from it's originator(s) intended purpose. Recent perennial bubble teams include Mississippi State, Virginia Tech, Notre Dame, Arizona State, Dayton, and Big East #12.
Manaman (pronounced man-uh-man VERY quickly) - a Rafterian term that for many March Madness followers is a way to know if this really is the Big Dance. A contest hasn't officially begun until this gets served up. Viewership of 'cuse games is usually lacking for this very reason. Oftentimes prop bets are even made not in regards to 'if' but 'when'.
Eye test - this is the term that spurred me to create this post since it has been used by every analyst and their uncle. Eye test is in regards to bubble teams as their intial qualifier for selection. If a team "passes the eye test", they look good on the court. This doesn't necessarily make them tourney material. You must have the results (W's), statistics, and consistency to back up flashes of brilliance. Also, if two teams look identical on paper, committee members have been rumored to use the "eye" test to give one the nod over the other. I'm usually a scientific method fan, but the "eye test" carries some validity for true followers of the game. In which case, I lobby this be renamed to the eye-cerebellum-cardiac test.
Quality loss - sounds like an oxymoron right? Well it is. This is one of many factors that the selection committee weighs when determining the field and seeding. It is the concept that a team should be rewarded for a close loss to a good team. Notice that this is a one-way street and can only help. Does a team also get equally penalized for a blowout loss or losing to a bad team? Since when do we hand out accolades for losing? Just a tip, tread lightly with this one because the final score doesn't necessarily indicate how competitive the game was. This goes both for winning and losing a contest. I think a quality loss should at minimum have a requirement to be on the road or a neutral location.
Vindication - I've let you know terms that are over-used. This is a case where a term is under-used! It applies elegantly to so many March Madness situations. I don't mean to be coy about how to use it, but it has about 5 different definitions. Ex #1: Siena provided vindication of their spot on the 9 line. Ex #2: The Pill vindicated his role as master controller of the second session. Ex #3: Bill Walton attempted to vindicate his claim of the world's greatest shot blocker. Ex #4: Brian Zoubek vindicated the paint during the first half.
