By John Fanta
FOX Sports College Basketball Writer
When the calendar turned to March earlier this year, the majority of sports fans likely would have heard Saint Peter’s and thought of the basilica in Rome.
If you then clarified that you were referring to the school, I would venture to guess that the majority of folks would not have been able to point out its location on a U.S. map or would have known that you were talking about a university.
But on the third Thursday of March 2022, millions gathered around TVs to take in a day of NCAA Tournament games. By that night, the small university in Jersey City, New Jersey, was no longer an afterthought.
An institution that few knew before they woke up that day became a sports and news story with its historic upset of blue blood Kentucky in the Big Dance.
Those Peacocks and their Elite Eight run that captured the sports world are the latest case of the beauty of the NCAA Tournament.
It’s a three-week event that is unrivaled in its pageantry, drama, underdog stories, shocking finishes, atmospheres, personalities and moments.
It’s where Sister Jean lives.
It’s where Ron Hunter falling off his stool as his son, RJ, hits the biggest shot of his life can tug at your heartstrings.
It’s where UMBC goes from a no-name to the first and only No. 16 seed to defeat a No. 1.
It’s where Kris Jenkins can become a hero by taking one shot.
The NCAA Tournament is tradition, one that forges on and continues to deliver the goods. It reflects what is fun about college sports, and for that three-week period, it seems like the rest of the issues come to a stop.
We’ll see if that continues to be the case when the calendar shifts to March in future years. Because right now those issues and the future of college sports hang in the balance.
The amateurism model in college athletics as we once knew it is not heading out — it’s already gone, thanks to NIL. But there are too many cases to count in college sports where it’s basically pay-for-play. Regulation? That doesn’t feel possible, and how could it be? Congress has said there’s nothing it can do to form rules or uniformity on NIL. All of these changes were going to come with adapting, and there’s plenty that must be figured out.
The state of college sports is on the minds of anyone who works in, participates in or covers them. Someone said to me recently that things seem to have calmed down since it was announced that UCLA and USC are joining the Big Ten in 2024. But how could things…
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