Okay, so I’ve been messing around with this crossword puzzle, the one about the NCAA basketball tournament nicknames, and let me tell you, it’s been a wild ride. I started this thing a couple of days ago, thinking it would be a fun little brain teaser. You know, something to do while I was chilling on the couch.
I dove in, scanning for the clues I knew off the bat. I saw the clue “NCAA basketball tournament nickname” and my mind immediately went to “March Madness.” I mean, who doesn’t think of that? But, alas, that wasn’t an option. It got me thinking, what other nicknames are there? This is when the real digging started.
I spent a good chunk of time Googling, trying to find a list of nicknames for the tournament. I stumbled upon a few crossword solver sites that claimed to have the answer. One site listed “30 possible answers”. Another said “40 possible answers” for this clue. Can you believe that many? I looked at each of them, but they were asking for the number of letters in the answer. “12 letters,” I said. This is a hint that I picked up from somewhere.
There was another site that was talking about “The Big ___” as a nickname for the tournament, but it didn’t have the full answer. More searching led me to a forum where someone mentioned that the nickname “The Big Dance” came from a Marquette basketball coach named Al McGuire. Apparently, back in 1977, he told a reporter, “you gotta wear the blue blazer when you go to the big dance.” And he did wear a bright blue blazer throughout Marquette’s winning season!
I also learned some trivia about the tournament itself. For instance, it’s a single-elimination tournament with 68 teams, all competing in seven rounds for the national championship. Then there’s the Naismith trophy, which is given to the most outstanding men’s and women’s basketball players and coaches.
I also found out some random team facts. Like, did you know the Nebraska Cornhuskers were the #8 seed in the South Region? And the Florida Atlantic Owls have two mascots, Owlsley and Hoot. Crazy, right?
After all this research and a few more hours of head-scratching, I finally cracked the code. It turned out the answer I was looking for was indeed “The Big Dance,” which has 12 letters! It was a bit of a letdown that I couldn’t figure it out on my own, but it’s also a little exciting.
Here’s a little list of what I learned, just for kicks:
- The tournament is often called “March Madness,” but that wasn’t the answer I needed.
- “The Big Dance” is a nickname that comes from Al McGuire, a former Marquette coach.
- The tournament is a big deal, with 68 teams and seven rounds.
- The Naismith trophy is a prestigious award in college basketball.
- Some teams have cool mascots, like Owlsley and Hoot.
So, yeah, that’s my saga with this crossword clue. It was way more involved than I expected, but hey, I learned a lot along the way. It also remind me of how much fun March Madness is.
