March Madness can grip a sports fan from the second week of March through the first week of April.
March Madness is the nickname for the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Men’s Basketball Tournament. (When NCAA is said out loud, people usually say “N C double-A.”)
The tournament determines the national champion of college basketball.
There is one player who is making a name for himself during March Madness.
Brady Heslip is a sweet-shooting player from Burlington, Ont. and his talent and hard-work ethic could help him take his team, the Baylor Bears (Texas) all the way.
Heslip is a guard and he’s one of the team’s best shooters. In Baylor’s second game of the tournament, Heslip had a breakout performance—he sank nine three-pointers.
Normally “a basket” is worth two points. But if you shoot it from further (from outside a certain line painted on the court) you get three points. It’s hard to sink one three-pointer in a basketball game—never mind nine of them.
Those 27 points were a career best for Heslip and helped propel his school into the “sweet 16” round, with 15 other schools.
So, who is Brady Heslip? He is the son of Tom Heslip, a former all-Canadian basketball player and the nephew of former Toronto Raptors’ basketball coach Jay Triano.
Heslip has loved basketball ever since he could hold one.
His parents encouraged his passion by letting him hang out at Raptors practices and games when he was a kid.
To get great at anything takes a lot of hard work. All through high school, he spent hours each day shooting and shooting and shooting… anywhere he could find a basket and a ball.
All of his hard work is paying off. This year, Heslip took his team all the way to the “elite eight,” the last eight teams of the March Madness tournament.
With his talent and dedication to his sport Heslip is now on the radar of many professional basketball teams. One day, he could live out his dream of playing in the NBA.
The championship March Madness game takes place April 2.
CURRICULUM CONNECTIONS
By Jonathan Tilly
Writing/Discussion Prompt
Today’s article gives three possible explanations for why Brady Heslip is such a good basketball player: (1) he practices really hard, (2) he grew up around basketball, and (3) members of his family are former players and coaches. Of these three reasons, which one has contributed to his skill the most? Why do you think so?
Reading Prompt: Comprehension Strategies
Visualization is a strategy that readers use to help them understand texts. Visualizing is seeing or imagining what you are reading about in your mind. This helps readers keep track of their understanding. Athletes also use the strategy visualization to be successful. For example, basketball players often try to imagine, or see in their mind, what they will do during the game or how they will shoot the ball. In what other situations would visualization be a helpful strategy?
Primary & Junior
Identify a variety of reading comprehension strategies and use them appropriately before, during, and after reading to understand texts (OME, Reading: 1.3).
Intermediate
Identify a variety of reading comprehension strategies and use them appropriately before, during, and after reading to understand increasingly complex texts (OME, Reading: 1.3).
Grammar Feature: Long Dash (—)
The long dash is used three times in today’s article.
“In Baylor’s second game of the tournament, Heslip had a breakout performance—he sank nine three-pointers.”
“It’s hard to sink one three-pointer in a basketball game—never mind nine of them.”
“Even now, he reportedly makes—not takes, makes—150 three-pointers before every Baylor practice.”
What do these examples tell you about how writers use the long dash? When is a long dash used instead of a comma?
