By Patrick Cooley
SHENANGO VALLEY — Anxious basketball fans crowded around television sets around the Shenango Valley to watch the NCAA selection show on Sunday evening.
Many left their homes to go to sports bars throughout the valley with their friends, and many said they will be doing the same thing when the tournament starts on Thursday.
A manager at Quaker Steak and Lube in Sharon said they’ve seen people take the first two days of the tournament off to go there to watch the games.
Dozens of games are crowded into the first four days of the tournament.
“It’s my favorite time of year,” Scott Karos of Hermitage said. “Your team fights all season to get here.”
Nationally, the tournament is one of the most anticipated sporting events of the entire year, and has even earned the moniker “March Madness.”
Many local basketball fans say they are especially looking forward to this year’s tournament because there is no clear favorite. Last year, many analysts predicted North Carolina would win the tournament, and they ended up doing just that, defeating Michigan State in the championship game.
This year Kansas has the same place North Carolina held last year, the number one overall seed. But basketball experts seem to think this year’s tournament is wide open, and local basketball fans agree.
“There are a whole bunch of teams that can win this year,” Tom Roskos of Sharpsville said as he watched the selection at Our Gang’s in Sharon.
Roskos was wearing a Penn State shirt on Sunday — a team that didn’t make the 65 team tournament — but he said the college basketball team he roots for is Syracuse.
“I think it’s good they lost (in their first game of the Big East tournament),” he said. Syracuse lost in quarterfinals of the Big East Tournament on Friday.
“They had some injuries that it gave them a chance to rest for a few days.”
Roskos said he thinks Kansas is the favorite this year, but agrees with many other basketball fans that there are other teams that look like they could go all the way.
“Ohio State looked good (in their win over Minnesota on Sunday),” he said.
Greg Evans of Hermitage said teams like Syracuse and Kentucky also looked good enough to win the whole thing. “Then you’ve got teams that have an outside chance of winning,” he said. “There’s Ohio State, Kansas State and Georgetown, it should be a good tournament.
They said they like it when there are more teams that have a chance to do well, because the tournament is more exciting when it’s not as predictable.
“There were four of five teams that were ranked number one all year,” Karos said. “There are eight or ten teams that can win it. I like it this way.”
“It’s wide open, that’s the best part about it,” said Corey Djakovic of Hermitage. “Anything can happen.”
