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Sports

Foxborough High Athletes and Coaches Weigh in on March Madness

Varsity boys' basketball coach C.J Neely and players pick their NCAA favorites.

In case you haven’t been watching TV, it’s once again March Madness. It is the chance for millions of fans to fill out their brackets and attempt to pick college basketball’s next national champion. Down at Foxboro High School, several athletes and coaches are ready to take a shot at showing off what they know about bracketology.

After the announcement of the tournaments’ 68 participants, it is the opportunity for fans and analysts to criticize or praise the decisions made by the tournament committee. With more teams than ever before, criticism of those snubbed were high; naturally, members of the Foxboro basketball team had their own critiques to add.

“The committee left out some good teams that they should of put in like BC, Alabama, Colorado, and Harvard,” said Foxboro Basketball player Justin Zupanick.

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Teammate Sean Davin seemed to agree, “BC is currently owning in the NIT right now. They should be in the tournament.”

While the players were ready to discuss who should be in, Coach CJ Neely was ready to remind his players that it was not the committee’s fault if the teams did not get to the tournament.

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“I’m pretty happy with the field. I think the best teams made it. I think that any team that is on the bubble has no one to blame but themselves for not making the tournament,” said Neely.

While there was argument about who should have gotten in, there was also a disagreement about who shouldn’t have made it. The main team in question is Penn. State. Playing out of a Big 10 Conference that may already have too many teams in the tournament FHS Basketball player Jake Soccorso thinks that, “they deserved it. They worked hard late in the season.” 

On the other end, football player Tony Guiterez disagreed with Penn State’s admittance, “I think Penn State shouldn’t of been a team that got in. I think that when extending the brackets it wasn’t a good idea because it creates too many teams that has a chance to get in.”

Foxboro High School history teacher and Penn. State Graduate Todd Kaesar defended the decision to let the Nittany Lions into the tournament.

"PSU did deserve to make it. Their strength of schedule was 6th and their RPI 46th. They were 4-6 vs. top 25 teams this year as well,” said Kaesar.

Despite disagreements over who should and shouldn’t be in, one thing is for certain; there are going to be upsets. Traditionally there is usually one team that is a 10th, 11th, or 12th seed that causes trouble. Everyone wants to be that person who can successfully predict the big upset.

“I got Clemson, the 12 seed winning,” said Guiterez predicting an early exit for the 5th seed West Virginia.  Both Zupanick and Davin predicted third round upsets. Zupanick predicts 6th seed Xavier over 3rd seed Syracuse in the East region, while Sean predicts 6th seed St. John over 3rd seed BYU in the Southeast region.

Coach Neely, however, took a riskier pick predicting 12th seed Utah State over 5th seed Kansas State in the Southeast region. With the discussion of upsets gaining excitement, even a student by the name of Patrick Brion chimed in, predicting 11th seed Marquette over Syracuse in the third round of the East region. For the National Championship both Guiterez and Davin took Ohio State. Soccorso is predicting that Syracuse is going to win it all despite his teammates’ low expectation for the Orange. Zupanick is predicting Kansas with Coach Neely taking Duke.

While the athletes of Foxboro High School and Coach Neely may not agree on all of the aspects of the NCAA Men’s Basketball tournament, it does show what makes March Madness so much fun. It is a chance for sports fans to engage in a friendly competition to see who can best predict the tournament. With the tournament already underway with the first four play-in games, the excitement to crown the next National Championship will be rising at Foxboro High School with every game.

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