March Madness at Owasso

By Katelyn Fisher

Many people enjoy the chaos that ensues from March Madness; the brackets and betting, the competitions and hurt feelings, the memories made and friendships lost. Some of these people include our very own Owasso High School staff. 

Photo Taken by Katelyn Fisher

Rachel Skalnik, a pre-algebra teacher and women's basketball coach at Owasso, enjoys filling out a bracket each year and challenging herself to do better than the previous year. This year Skalnik chose the University of Houston as her champion. 

Skalnik explains, “I think defense wins championships, so I filtered teams who would win based on rebounds, minimum points allowed and then based on the record of their last ten games.”

However, things don’t always go as planned, and this was the case for Skalnik. Just last Friday, Miami beat out Houston and took their place in the final four. Her confidence levels slowly began to fall as more and more games were played. 

Going into the start of the tournament, Skalnik stated that she was, “like 87% confident.” However, at this point, she is “35% confident that I will win.”

Photo Taken by Katelyn Fisher

Jerry Peaker, who teaches lifetime sports and outdoor education at the high school, filled out his own March Madness bracket this year. He also chose Houston as the winner for the same reason Skalnik did: defense. 

Peaker states, “I felt like Coach Sampson (Houston's head coach) does a good job of defense.” 

Everyone has a different way that they sort through teams to determine the best. The three main components of Peaker’s method include offense, defense and guard play. He believes that these three parts are what make a team great and filtered his top picks based on that. 

Peaker explains, “Usually I try and look at offensive and defensive efficiencies, where they rank and kind of guard play… because I feel like guard play affects the game, so those are the three factors I go off of.”

Peaker was positive in his March Madness bracket when filling it out. However, his teams started losing and his confidence levels decreased. This competition is mostly based on luck since no team can be assured a win. 

Peaker states, “I felt pretty confident, but then I had Arizona playing Houston in the championship game and that was like the second game in the tournament, and Arizona got beat in the first round, so my bracket kinda went down pretty fast.” 

Photo of March Madness bracket taken by Rickey Peaker

The March Madness competition even pins siblings against one another. Rickey Peaker, brother to Jerry Peaker, teaches Health and Weight Training at the high school and is an assistant coach for boys' basketball. Coach Peaker picked Alabama as the winner, and unfortunately, it hasn’t worked out in his favor. 

Coach Peaker explains, “I picked Alabama because I felt they were the best team in the country for a majority of the season.”

While some have full confidence in their prediction abilities, Coach Peaker is a little more realistic. He realizes that in the end it’s just up to luck and prediction, and there is no set way to ensure you choose the right team. Sometimes players and teams have bad games and lose ones they know they shouldn’t, and other times it’s a lack of experience that causes good teams to lose. 

Coach Peaker explains, “The past few years, the tournament has been very unpredictable. I personally believe a lot of the one-and-done players have made the tournament so unpredictable. So many of the players are going into the tournament with a lack of experience.” 

Now that the tournament is almost over, Coach Peaker’s confidence has remained low. Most of his teams are out, and the final four teams are set. 

Coach Peaker states, “I only have one team that is still playing and that is UCONN. I had Houston and Alabama playing for the national championship.” 

Coach Peaker has been filling out brackets his whole life. Ever since he was a kid, he has found a fascination with basketball which led him to the March Madness tournament. 

Coach Peaker excitedly states, “My love of basketball is what got me started doing a bracket, and that hasn't changed over the years. I love basketball and don't feel that there is any sporting event more exciting than March Madness!”