Eclipse Excitement Meets March Madness on April 8th

Six March Madness Teams Will Be TOTALLY ECLIPSED Just Hours Before the NCAA Championship Game on April 8th

By Bryan Brewer, author of ECLIPSE: Experience Awe in the Path of Totality

March 20, 2024

The total solar eclipse will occur on the afternoon of April 8th.

The Men’s Final Four Championship Game will take place on the evening of April 8th.

Coincidentally, six of the college basketball teams competing in 2024 March Madness are located within the path of totality that day!

Eclipses have been interpreted throughout the ages in both positive and negative terms. One common belief is that an eclipse foretells some disaster. Other cultures view this celestial conjunction as a symbol of love and luck.

Could this remarkable coincidence fuel the fantasies of folks filling out their brackets, hoping to predict a winner based on “hidden influences?”

Here are the teams (none of them highly ranked) whose college campuses will be shrouded in darkness for a few minutes during totality that afternoon:

• University of Texas, Austin TX
• Baylor University, Waco TX
• Texas Christian University, Fort Worth TX
• University of Dayton, Dayton OH
• University of Akron, Akron OH
• University of Vermont, Burlington VT

The April 8, 2024, eclipse will end when the last vestige of the Moon’s shadow leaves the Earth at 4:52 pm EDT.

Then the Championship game in Phoenix will begin with tipoff at 9:20 pm EDT.

For all of recorded history, people have attributed magical qualities to celestial events: full moons evoke werewolves; comets foretell the downfall of a ruler; eclipses are awesome messages from the heavens.

Eclipses have power:

• In 585 BC, a total solar eclipse caused two warring Middle Eastern armies to immediately lay down their arms and make peace.
• After witnessing the total solar eclipse on May 5, 840, European emperor Louis the Pious died unexpectedly (some say of fright) shortly thereafter.
• In 1503, Christopher Columbus used his foreknowledge of a lunar eclipse to trick the indigenous people of Jamaica into supporting him and his shipwrecked crew while they awaited rescue.

And of course, the power of the eclipse is attracting millions of people to travel to be in the path of totality, hoping for clear skies so they can catch a glimpse of the solar corona. This awesome spectacle—which can’t be seen at any other time and can only be seen if you are inside the 120-mile-wide path of totality—has been described as the most fleeting and beautiful spectacle in Nature.

Eclipses also happen according to regular cycles that recur over thousands of years. The most common of these is the saros, first discovered by the ancient Babylonians. The saros cycle shows that an eclipse of similar attributes will occur at intervals of 18 years and 11 days.

The previous eclipse in the April 8, 2024 saros cycle occurred on March 29, 2006, with the path crossing Africa and Asia. That year the Final Four championship game took place just five days later on April 3, with Florida beating UCLA in Indianapolis, which is in the path of totality on April 8th this year!

If you want to explore these and other coincidences, my generously illustrated book ECLIPSE: Experience Awe in the Path of Totality has a wealth of stories and details about the history and science of eclipses, plus guidance on how to get the most from your eclipse experience on April 8th.

What will happen when Eclipse Excitement Meets March Madness?

Could one of the six “eclipsed teams” make a Cinderella run at the championship? Or could one of them play a spoiler role, knocking out a top seed in an early round?

Consider this excerpt by Frank Herbert, author of Dune, who wrote the Foreword the first edition of my book:

“We are Earth creatures. It would be remarkable if the rhythms that influence this planet where we evolved produced no effects on our flesh comparable to the influences upon our religions and philosophies.”

Perhaps it’s just a quirk in human nature that impels our primal brains to find coincidences and make meaning of them. After all, who would believe that a total solar eclipse could influence the outcome of a basketball tournament?

At any rate, Monday April 8, 2024 promises to be an entertaining day across America.

Good luck with your bracket, and best wishes for clear skies!