Anything can happen in NCAAs

What’s this fascination with the NCAA college basketball tournament, aka March Madness? Why has it arguably become the second-most watched sports event in America, right behind the Super Bowl?

Three words: Anything can happen.

It isn’t really like that with the World Series, the Masters, the Indianapolis and Daytona 500s and some of the other iconic national events. The World Series matches what are supposed to be the best teams in baseball that year. Tiger Woods, or one of the other high-profile pros, always wins the Masters; big-money drivers tend to triumph in the big-money auto races.

Yet college basketball’s season-ending event is different, which is why even sports fans who never heard of schools like Gonzaga and Butler and Siena gleefully adopt them come March — or curse them for ruining their office pool sheets.

I can sympathize with the latter. A few years ago, I picked Iowa State to win the national title, only to see them lose in the first round of the tournament to Hampton University, an improbable underdog.

Imagine the third party candidate in a presidential election beating the Republicans and Democrats. Or some obscure indy film winning Best Picture at the Academy Awards.

Don Henley, formerly of the Eagles, wrote a song about this phenomena back in the ‘80s. Actually, he didn’t realize that “I Will Not Go Quietly” was about March Madness, intending it as just another anthem about some failed or fragile love affair. But if the tournament ever adopted a soundtrack, this song would be it.

Woke up with a heavy head/ and I thought about leaving town./ Could have died if I wanted to/ slipped over the edge and drowned./ But oh, no, baby — I won’t give up that easily.

No doubt Vermont felt that way before playing No. 3 seed Syracuse a few years ago. Instead, the Catamounts ruined March for orange-wearing Syracuse fans everywhere by scoring a once-in-a-lifetime

victory.

Not to pick on the Orange, but they also once took a team into the tournament that featured four future pro stars. That quartet then worked together to lose to Richmond.

Brave enough to be crazy,/strong enough to be weak/ I’ve seen all these heroes with feet of clay,/ their mighty ships have sprung a leak/ and I want you to tell me/ just what do you believe in now?

Syracuse knows all about feet — or sneakers — of clay. So does Duke, which has lost to Virginia Commonwealth. And this year’s Ohio State squad that was bounced from the tournament by spunky little Siena. Four years ago, George Mason stunned the country by making it all the way into the Final Four.

Perhaps people have become so enthralled by March Madness because it ties into a couple of our other current cultural fascinations — “Survivor” and “American Idol.” All three are marathons, and all are based on attrition — each week, somebody has to go home.

Actually, for 48 teams this past weekend, a better TV metaphor might be “Lost.” Or, for the upset victims, an exchange of lines from the movie “Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid.”

“Who are those guys?” asks Sundance as shots from a pursuing posse narrowly miss them.

“I don’t know,” Butch replies, “but they’re very good.”