NCAA

The NCAA men’s basketball tournament, known to most people by its most common moniker March Madness, started last Sunday with the announcement of the bracket for the tournament. As bracket-mania quickly overtook the problems in Japan as the hottest news story, I found myself reluctantly persuaded to fill out my own bracket and promised to watch some of the opening second round games with my dad and brother, the college basketball fanatics of the family.

Princeton finished last year with the 32nd best athletic program among Division I schools nationwide, 20 spots ahead of Cornell, its nearest Ivy League competitor, according to the annual ranking by the National Association of Collegiate Directors of Athletics. But when it comes to selling Princeton to high school recruits, it is the U.S. News & World Report ranking that matters.

The National Collegiate Athletic Association has announced that all Division I student athletes must be tested for sickle cell trait, or sicklemia, effective at the start of the 2010-11 academic year, unless athletes show proof of a previous test or sign a waiver exempting themselves from the test.