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Are you a diehard college basketball fan looking for the best March Madness books? There are a number of popular March Madness books that we recommend:
“The Ultimate Book of March Madness: The Players, Games, and Cinderellas that Captivated a Nation” by Tom Hager
Every March, millions of Americans have their minds fixated on one thing: the NCAA men’s basketball tournament. From bracket pools in offices worldwide to students on campuses in all corners of the nation, “March Madness” takes the country by storm. From the “First Four” to the Final Four, collegiate heavyweights such as Duke and North Carolina, Kansas and Kentucky, Indiana and Michigan, Texas and UCLA mix it up with Cinderella underdogs such as VCU, George Mason, and Penn, reminding the world that anything is possible. The magic of the tournament and the purity of the amateur game keep fans coming back year after year. From the birth of the tournament in 1939 to the most recent on-court drama, The Ultimate Book of March Madness explores the stories—both the legendary and the forgotten—behind each year’s tournament, and author Tom Hager selects the 100 greatest games from tournament history. With insight from dozens of players and coaches, this book reveals the tension, strategy, and even the behind-the-scenes humor of the tournament’s history. Featuring a unique blend of storytelling, quotes, vintage photographs, and game descriptions, The Ultimate Book of March Madness provides the average hoops fan with a deeper understanding of the history of the Final Four, while providing true fanatics with memorable and amazing stories they’ve never heard before.
“Madness: The Ten Most Memorable NCAA Basketball Finals” by Mark Mehler and Charles Paikert
The annual NCAA Basketball Tournament, which has become known as “March Madness” has emerged as a major sports event, matched only by the Super Bowl and the Olympics. In Madness, Mark Mehler and Charles Paikert tell the stories behind the ten most compelling and memorable championship games in tournament history, from North Carolina’s triple-overtime victory over Wilt Chamberlain’s Kansas Wildcats in 1957 to Duke’s heart stopping victory over underdog Butler in 2010. As a bonus, five more games that just missed the cut are also examined. Madness goes beyond the games to tell the the backstories of these classics, each entirely unique unto itself. For example, Jim Valvano taking his impossible dream of a national title and making it come true for the 1983 North Carolina State Wolfpack; Rollie Massimino turning spaghetti and clam sauce into inspiration for his underachieving 1985 Villanova team; and Magic Johnson and Larry Bird, breaking down in tears while taking a Broadway curtain call in front of a wildly-applauding audience who two hours earlier didn’t know who these two guys were decades after their head-to-head matchup in 1979. Some of these stories also resonate far beyond the basketball court, including the 1966 triumph by the Texas Western Miners, which helped chisel away the college basketball color line and stamped their victory as “Glory Road.” Over sixty years of college basketball history is brought to life in this must-have for all basketball fans.
“The Back Roads to March: The Unsung, Unheralded, and Unknown Heroes of a College Basketball Season” by John Feinstein
John Feinstein has already taken readers into the inner circles of top college basketball programs in The Legends Club. This time, Feinstein pulls back the curtain on college basketball’s lesser-known Cinderella stories–the smaller programs who no one expects to win, who have no chance of attracting the most coveted high school recruits, who rarely send their players on to the NBA. Feinstein follows a handful of players, coaches, and schools who dream, not of winning the NCAA tournament, but of making it past their first or second round games. Every once in a while, one of these coaches or players is plucked from obscurity to continue on to lead a major team or to play professionally, cementing their status in these fiercely passionate fan bases as a legend. These are the gifted players who aren’t handled with kid gloves–they’re hardworking, gritty teammates who practice and party with everyone else. With his trademark humor and invaluable connections, John Feinstein reveals the big time programs you’ve never heard of, the bracket busters you didn’t expect to cheer for, and the coaches who inspire them to take their teams to the next level.
“Bracketology: March Madness, College Basketball, and the Creation of a National Obsession” by Joe Lunardi
The NCAA Tournament has become one of the most popular sports events in the country, consuming fans for weeks with the run to the Final Four and ultimately the crowning of the champion of college hoops. Each March, millions of Americans fill out their bracket in the hopes of correctly predicting the future. Yet, there is no true Madness without the oft-debated question about what teams should be seeded where—from the Power-5 Blue Blood with some early season stumbles on their resume to the mid-major that rampaged through their less competitive conference season—and the inventor of Bracketology himself, Joe Lunardi, now reveals the mystery and science behind the legend. While going in depth on his ever-evolving predictive formula, Lunardi compares great teams from different eras with intriguing results, talks to the biggest names in college basketball about their perception of Bracketology (both good and bad), and looks ahead to the future of the sport and how Bracketology will help shape the conversation.
“How March Became Madness: How the NCAA Tournament Became the Greatest Sporting Event in America” by Eddie Einhorn
Told through the voices of players, coaches, and announcers, the fascinating account of how the first prime-time telecast of a college basketball game, the historic contest between Houston and UCLA in the Astrodome in 1968, reveals how it laid the foundation for what became one of the greatest sporting events in America and includes a DVD of the historic game.
