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March Madness Wraps Up For 2022

Posted on by kayleij

This week, both men’s and women’s March Madness tournaments concluded with two new champions. This year’s competitions were full of bracket busters and Cinderella stories, yet the Final Four for each was a return to the norm. The University of Kansas Jayhawks took the crown for the men, while the University of South Carolina Gamecocks won it all for the women.

Let’s take a look at many of the social trends surrounding these nearly month-long competitions – as the First Four round began for the men on March 15 and the women on March 16, and the championship games were played over the last two nights.

In a window from March 14, 2022, through noon on April 5, 2022, the words “March Madness” were mentioned just over 809.49K times, reaching nearly 8.34 billion feeds. The official name for the tournament, the NCAA Tournament, was mentioned only slightly less, with 737.5K mentions while reaching 11.31 billion feeds, likely due to more official team and media accounts with wider audience bases using the proper name rather than the colloquialism “March Madness.” However, the hashtag #marchmadness checked in with 9,125 uses while the #ncaatournament hashtag rounded up just 1,812 uses. 

Many athletes’ standout performances led to a growth in personal online followings, especially on Instagram:

However, the championship teams on each side as a whole were the subjects of lots of traffic and discussion online as well.

Men’s Championship

    • University of Kansas Jayhawks: The Jayhawks won the title with a score of 72-69 after staging the largest comeback ever in a national championship game, down by 15 points at the half. While acknowledging that searching just for the state/university name will pull in lots of unrelated traffic, the terms “Kansas” OR “Jayhawks” pulled in 1.41 million mentions over the same time window as above. Meanwhile, Ochai Agbaji was named the Most Outstanding Player (the unfortunately abbreviated MOP) of the tournament, and his name returned 50.23K mentions – naturally spiking over the Final Four and after he was named the MOP.

    • University of North Carolina Tar Heels: The Tar Heels have the opposite entry into the history books than the Jayhawks, giving up that same record-setting lead to lose their latest shot at the title. The terms “UNC” OR “Tar Heels” returned 170.8K mentions across platforms. The eight-seed was certainly the underdog compared to the top-ranked Kansas squad, and even though they lost many of their fans were eager to talk about first-year UNC coach Hubert Davis’s amazing path to the finals.

Women’s Championship

    • University of South Carolina Gamecocks: Leading up to the final, UConn head coach Geno Auriemma reminded us all he had an 11-0 record in championship games; basketball icon and USC coach Dawn Staley responded that she was – at that point – 1-0 in championship games, so they really had the same win percentage. Staley would indeed get the last laugh this year as her South Carolina squad would take down the perennial powerhouse Huskies, 64-49. The Gamecocks pulled in 362.33K mentions over this time window, with coach Staley herself accumulating 120.49K mentions – a whopping 84.5% of which were positive! South Carolina’s reigning player of the year Aliyah Boston was also named the Most Outstanding Player of the women’s tournament, earning both personal redemption as well as 2.25K mentions – including a name drop by Magic Johnson himself.

    • University of Connecticut Huskies: It’s impossible to overstate just how much UConn has dominated women’s basketball over the past few decades. Star player Paige Bueckers consistently turns in elite performances while Coach Auriemma has plenty of proof to back up his confidence. “UConn” OR “Huskies” turned in 815.7K mentions – interestingly, a major dropoff in traffic after the first few days of the tournament that continued through the final. Bueckers’ name returned 48.5K mentions, spiking on game days, while Auriemma was mentioned 28.76K times, with surges around the Final Four and prior to the championship game.

Honorable Mention: The Cinderella Story

  • St. Peter’s University Peacocks: Every year, it seems that one low-seeded team pulls off an improbable run and downs its fair share of giants before the magic runs out. This year, the 15-seed Peacocks plowed through Kentucky, Murray State, and Purdue before UNC would ultimately get the better of them in the Elite Eight. These underdogs pulled in 239.3K mentions during their amazing run, while basketball’s new darling Doug Edert accounted for 36.97K mentions. Edert, along with two of his teammates, Daryl Banks and Matthew Lee, announced just today that they were entering the transfer portal, leading to the start of an uptick in traffic around their names at the time this article was written.

Author: Kayleigh Jackson

Posted in Tracking News via Social Media Analytics