North Carolina’s Ultimate Fan Vote win showed the passion of all college fans, March Madness or not

So much has come out of the current COVID-19 crisis that you can’t even begin to unpack it all, yet one reality is increasingly clear and present.

Communal things, the kind of which we typically take for granted, are painfully missed when they are taken from us.

In sports, few events are more societal than the NCAA Tournament, a three-week jaunt of color and charm and Cinderella dreams that brings us together with the unique mystique of bracketology, where expertise counts for little and hope is for all.

“We all feel that sadness and empathize with the players… We’re heartbroken – the committee is heartbroken.”@NCAA SVP of Basketball Dan Gavitt walks @TheAndyKatz through the intense & unprecedented decision to cancel the NCAA Tournament, including all contingencies. pic.twitter.com/jEtPs5avKx

— NCAA March Madness (@marchmadness) March 14, 2020

No activity has been untouched by the widespread shuttering of American life, but amid all sports, the most savage blow was perhaps to college hoops. With several conference championships already underway, the season was abruptly and necessarily shuttered, with first a revelation that the tournament would be held behind closed doors, then a swift move to cancel it altogether.

“It was Friday the 13th, and it felt like the sky was falling,” Tate Frazier, of the Titus and Tate FOX Sports hoops podcast, told me via telephone. “Obviously, it is a lot bigger than college basketball, but for people who love it, this is the most special and magical time of the year. You go from preparing for it, looking forward to it, discussing the matchups, to it suddenly not existing anymore.”

But college fans are a resilient bunch, their love of school and team undimmed by time or circumstance. Evidence of that has come in recent weeks, with FOX Sports’ Ultimate Fan Bracket: College Basketball Edition enjoying a swell of popularity culminating in more than 2.5 million votes.

They didn’t get the W, but @BYUbasketball fans put on a show in our Ultimate Fan Bracket ?? #FOXFanVote pic.twitter.com/34YB1gotFn

— FOX College Hoops (@CBBonFOX) April 27, 2020

Held on Twitter, 68 teams were organized into a bracket, with each matchup winner being the school that generated the most social media votes within a designated time period. The ultimate winner, announced on Monday, was North Carolina. The prize – a billboard proclaiming UNC as the greatest fan base in the sport, and placed near the campus of their rivals, either Duke or North Carolina State (and more to come on that).

You need some luck and a few things to fall in your favor to win a championship, and perhaps that was the case with the Tar Heels here, too. Factors such as “The Last Dance,” featuring Michael Jordan and the Chicago Bulls team of 1998, also served to spark some nostalgia for Jordan’s UNC exploits, with footage in the first two episodes of his title-winning basket in 1982.

“To see a national poll with UNC on top was a bit surprising,” admitted North Carolina graduate Frazier, who still remembers Florida State’s Sam Cassell deriding UNC supporters as “cheese and wins” fans. “It was fortuitous timing. ‘The Last Dance’ ignited some nostalgic vibes. It fell into place.”

The vote was impossibly close, with UNC holding off Brigham Young University in the final thanks to supporting Tweets from alumni like Harrison Barnes and Rick Fox, while Jimmer Fredette and even former presidential candidate Mitt Romney went to bat for the Cougars.

#GoCougs! https://t.co/leUSILL16e

— Mitt Romney (@MittRomney) April 26, 2020

That razor-thin margin was fairly common throughout the bracket, with multiple matchups coming down to the closing minutes throughout the rounds. Tate’s podcast partner, Mark Titus, teased him that North Carolina received 50.1% of the vote in each of their matchups — yet the Tar Heels survived, advanced, and claimed the crown.

It was a reminder, if we needed one, of what college loyalty and sporting pride mean to people. The greatest way in which society can pay tribute to those who have lost their lives and the first responders who have risked theirs is to live to the fullest when we come out of all this.

Tate described March Madness as a “weird and beautiful concoction,” and it is. It is sad that we were without it, and while heartache must be kept in context in the light of the pandemic’s tragic realities, it is real.

For teams like Dayton with Obi Toppin and a swell of positive vibes leading to the sense of impending destiny, it was crushing. For the Cinderellas we never knew, a lost chance at greatness. For all the seniors, no final chance to shine on a national stage.

Obi Toppin > Everyone

The @DaytonMBB superstar is the AP Player of the Year! ?? pic.twitter.com/tkEkahvioD

— FOX College Hoops (@CBBonFOX) March 24, 2020

And ultimately, the reality that at the end of it all, there would have been a true national champion who would have battled through, survived and advanced five times and then finished it off with everything on the line.

That was one team’s destiny, until it wasn’t.

We don’t know who the winners would have been. When it comes to who lost, the answer is simple. We all did. But for a few weeks this April, fans still had a chance to rally around their schools, to cheer alongside their most famous alumni, and to watch as contest after contest came down to the buzzer.

Congratulations on your title, North Carolina. You absolutely earned it.

“Might have to use this in recruiting” ?@UNC_Basketball Head Coach Roy Williams reacts to the Tar Heels’ Ultimate Fan Bracket victory on @theHerd. #FOXFanVote pic.twitter.com/y4zilduRs9

— FOX College Hoops (@CBBonFOX) April 27, 2020