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.

The NCAA men's basketball tournament is one of the iconic events in American sports. In this fast-paced, in-depth account, J. Samuel Walker and Randy Roberts identify the 1973–74 season as pivotal in the making of this now legendary postseason tournament. In an era when only one team per conference could compete, the dramatic defeat of coach John Wooden's UCLA Bruins by the North Carolina State Wolfpack ended a decade of the Bruins' dominance, fueled unprecedented national attention, and prompted the NCAA to expand the tournament field to a wider range of teams. Walker and Roberts provide a richly detailed chronicle of the games that made the season so memorable and uncover the behind-the-scenes maneuvering that set the stage for the celebrated spectacle that now fixes the nation's attention every March.

The mathematics behind today's most widely used rating and ranking methods A website's ranking on Google can spell the difference between success and failure for a new business. NCAA football ratings determine which schools get to play for the big money in postseason bowl games. Product ratings influence everything from the clothes we wear to the movies we select on Netflix. Ratings and rankings are everywhere, but how exactly do they work? Who's #1? offers an engaging and accessible account of how scientific rating and ranking methods are created and applied to a variety of uses. Amy Langville and Carl Meyer provide the first comprehensive overview of the mathematical algorithms and methods used to rate and rank sports teams, political candidates, products, Web pages, and more. In a series of interesting asides, Langville and Meyer provide fascinating insights into the ingenious contributions of many of the field's pioneers. They survey and compare the different methods employed today, showing why their strengths and weaknesses depend on the underlying goal, and explaining why and when a given method should be considered. Langville and Meyer also describe what can and can't be expected from the most widely used systems. The science of rating and ranking touches virtually every facet of our lives, and now you don't need to be an expert to understand how it really works. Who's #1? is the definitive introduction to the subject. It features easy-to-understand examples and interesting trivia and historical facts, and much of the required mathematics is included.

A gripping, insightful, humorous firsthand account on the Varsity Blues College Admissions Scandal as seen through the eyes of a parent. From the moment armed federal officers barged into his bedroom at dawn, dragging him away in irons without telling him the nature of his crime, Greg Abbott recounts his experiences all the way through federal prison. Without skirting any wrongdoing, Abbott humanizes a case otherwise marked by federal abuse and one-dimensional, often flagrantly dishonest media portrayals. He shares why he paid $125,000 to Rick Singer’s Key Worldwide Foundation to support his daughter’s standardized test scores, how he believed it was a humane, one-off accommodation for her physical disability—a severe form of Lyme disease that robbed his otherwise accomplished daughter of focus. The author shares unsettling truths about how lives otherwise blessed, even exemplary at times, can become cursed by a single false step taken out of love and compassion, not crass ambition. Such a misstep can incur the government’s wrath where none was needed and become endless grist for media and internet mills to satisfy our insatiable appetites for schadenfreude. His story, in the mere telling, exposes the real scandals of Varsity Blues and explains why citizens of all political stripes should be concerned. “We are merely one side of this multifaceted infamy,” he writes.

Far too often, people are introduced to a caricature of the conservative movement before they’ve actually heard what the average conservative has to say. In The Downfall of America , Jake Klausner presents a conservative perspective on the forces currently working to tear down long-standing American traditions and institutions. The book outlines the ways in which the Left has waged war against traditional American values and even reality itself. In an age of emotional appeals, it makes the conservative argument using logic and statistics. The challenge conveyed to the reader is simple, but critical: “Don’t let freedom be extinguished in your lifetime; make sure that it’s still there for your kids and theirs.”

In the early 1970s, the United States was much the same as in the radical '60s; Americans dying in Vietnam, anti-war demonstrations on college campuses, conflict between blacks and whites in most major cities. In predominantly white Dolton, a south Chicago suburb, busing had come to Thornridge High School. Black students from nearby Phoenix now attended school with whites from Dolton and South Holland. They were not warmly received. Then, the Thornridge basketball team started winning Fans in black and white communities came together as Thornridge captured consecutive Illinois championships. Led by the national high school athlete of the year, Quinn Buckner, the Falcons stormed to a perfect season in 1972. No team even came close. This is their story told in their own words. THORNRIDGE is about prejudice and acceptance, adversity and triumph, and a team that changed attitudes while the players were having the time of their lives.