Por Alex Pinsky Streinger, 13 anos

Basketball is arguably the most popular sport in the United States. Pretty much everybody in the country know some facts about it.

Now, one can analyze basketball in various ways: division, teams, players. I will describe here the differences between two groups: college basketball and professional basketball.

The NBA (National Basketball Association) is the professional league and the season lasts much longer than college basketball. The most entertaining part of the season in these two leagues are the ‘’playoffs’’ in the NBA and the so called ‘’March Madness’’ in college. This occurs after the regular season, and consequently it is called the postseason.

It is at this point that the champion of the current season is determined. The teams that participate in the postseason are the ones that finish with the best record in their division and the most wins during the season. However, the two leagues are designed differently.

The college tournament has one division and thirty two conferences. A total of 351 schools participate in the tournament. Only sixty eight of those schools go to the March Madness, separated in four divisions, East, West, Midwest and South.

For the NBA, it is much simpler, thirty teams divided into east and west battle to finish in the top eight best record in their conference. And in the playoffs, like college basketball, the best seeded team, or the team with the best record goes against the team with the worst record between the qualified.

Both the NBA and college basketball are exciting, but the latter is becoming much more thrilling than the former. The truth is that the NBA is becoming more and more predictable every year.  The fans practically know who is going to win: for example in this year the playoffs had only one series that went to a game seven. And a bunch of blowouts, including a forty point win by the Cleveland Cavaliers over the Boston Celtics in the eastern conference finals. While in the Western Conference the Warriors are 11-0 in the playoffs, and look like they and the Cavaliers are both going to play their third consecutive finals series! On the other hand, in college tournament, every game is an elimination one, so if you win you go through; you lose, you go home. And that is a big part of what makes college basketball more exciting.