Final Four Weekend And 2020 March Madness Championship Night

There is no college basketball championship game tonight.

Final Four weekend was suppose to be the pinnacle of the college basketball season and March Madness. But the 2020 NCAA Tournament will have an asterisk (*) and forever be remembered for the shutdown caused by COVID-19. The health crisis has sent the world and American economy, sports and entertainment into a tailspin. And no bookmaker could have set odds on the impact and irrevocable harm this pandemic could have caused.

With no March Madness in 2020, we’re left with memories of great moments, teams and players that beat the odds and provided performances worthy of the best at tournament time. I covered one of those performances by Davidson and Stephen Curry in a recent article at Forbes.

As I covered in my “missing March Madness’ article at Offshore Gaming Association and what would have been Final Four weekend, the financial loss will be forever felt with no March Madness in 2020. The NCAA Tournament cancellation affects sportsbooks and bettors, and millions of sports fans along with the NCAA, which gets between 75-80 of their annual revenue from the NCAA Tournament.

Our annual NCAA Tournament betting tips and postseason primer was just getting started when COVID-19 caused the tournament cancellation. Thus, there was no evaluating the No. 1 seeds like Virginia last year who went on to win the NCAA Championship in overtime over No. 3 seed Texas Tech, who I had at 75-1 odds to win the tournament during conference play of the regular season, and recommended at 23-1 heading into the Sweet Sixteen.

No bragging about the brackets and sweating out a Final Four game like that championship match-up, or making winning Sweet Sixteen bets and being able to watch Texas Tech dominate Michigan as underdog and witness one of the greatest Sweet Sixteen games in the past decade when Purdue and Tennessee piled up points in a 99-94 Boilermakers overtime win that featured a Volunteers second half comeback from an 18 point deficit. A wild, fast-paced game with 27 made 3-pointers at a 49% clip. Purdue would go on to lose in overtime in the Elite Eight to Texas Tech with Boilers guard Carsen Edwards completing one of the greatest individual performances in tournament history while averaging 35 points per game and a tournament record 28 made 3-point shots.

Last year witnessed a tournament record 16 teams all advance as favorites to the Round of 32. Fewer early upsets, but we saw those in the following rounds and fans and bettors especially miss the opening round of the tournament where hope bleeds eternal and upsets and fantastic finishes make up the NCAA Tournament we so dearly miss.

So with a Final Four weekend lost and no 2020 NCAA Tournament champion crowned, we’re left with simulations of March Madness and what would have been. Whether blue blood No. 1 seed Kansas would have made the Final Four or upstart mid-majors Dayton or San Diego State would have made their run to Atlanta as top seeds (1-2) is left to ‘what if’ from bracketology. Would there have been a true Cinderella make a run to the Elite Eight and Final Four like Loyola Chicago in the 2018 NCAA Tournament?

Those are just some of the recent March Madness memories. But from the most memorable Elite Eight games to the best Final Four games beyond the recent decade, sports fans, bettors, media members and sportsbook operators won’t forget the impact of COVID-19 and lost 2020 NCAA Tournament.

You can bet on it.