The 68-team bracket has been filled out, as the men’s and women’s NCAA Tournaments are set to begin this week.
While sports fans are excited for this year’s games, there are those who reminisce about their time on that March Madness court. Emotions, flashbacks and more flood back once a year, especially for those who were able to make the run every kid dreams of in March.
New York Knicks point guard Jalen Brunson is one of those players.
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“Yeah. I mean, it was one of the most intense times in my life,” he told Fox News Digital when asked about his thoughts this time of year, while discussing his partnership with BODYARMOR. “Whenever you get into the playoffs in anything – high school, college, and now at the professional level – everything gets turned up a little bit. Even though everyone says, ‘Just keep it another game. Try to keep that mindset,’ there’s just something different about it.
“Those times back in college and those championships, those were some of my favorite times.”
It’s hard for Brunson not to think back to those times playing for the Villanova Wildcats, where he didn’t just win one NCAA title – he had two in his three college seasons before leaving for the 2018 NBA Draft.
So, for those players about to embark on what they hope is a long run in the tournament, Brunson is the perfect person to ask the sacred question: What does it take to be great in March?
“I think most importantly, even though it’s not, you have to prepare and treat it like another game,” Brunson said after quick contemplation. “If anything, treat it like your last, because it could be. I think, most importantly, don’t deviate from your routine. Yes, it might not be just another game, but your preparation and everything going into it is very similar.
“You do anything that’s not in your ordinary routine, subconsciously things can be different. Just try to keep it the same as possible and do your best to prepare.”
Of course, Brunson’s advice is easier said than done. The stakes are higher, the possessions are more tense, and the atmosphere can be overwhelming. But Brunson and his Wildcats teammates, which include fellow Knicks Josh Hart and Mikal Bridges, ignored all the noise and tried their hardest to treat everything like just another game at the end of the day.
As the tournament begins with the First Four on Tuesday night to whittle the pool down to 64 teams, Brunson knows talk in the locker room will start to heat up about the tournament. He does have every right to brag about ‘Nova considering his history, but he doesn’t.
However, that doesn’t mean he and his fellow Wildcats are not listening.
“No, we don’t talk about Nova that much, but whenever someone says, ‘Oh, my team in college was this,’ we kinda just look over and smirk,” Brunson said, smiling. “They’re like, ‘All right, you guys are out of this conversation.’ We always get butted out, but needless to say, we have an upper hand on everybody else.”
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