It’s March 2026, and the newly niched Amol is stuck asking himself, How the hell can I still write about college basketball? Unfortunately for you, an idea materialized—it’s called the Rust Belt Guide to March Madness.
As a reminder, I grew up in Connecticut, where the dearth of professional sports teams left little choice but to obsess over kids throwing a ball in a bucket.
Later in life, I moved to the Great Lakes region, where the abundance of abandoned steel mills left little choice but to obsess over that thing known as rust.
So without further ado, here’s the first annual Rust Belt Guide to March Madness.
The First Four
To whittle a field of 68 teams down to 64, we need the so-called First Four, or four games to find four losers.
And what better place to lose than Dayton, Ohio? The annual host of the First Four has lost nearly 50 percent of its population since 1960.
First and Second Rounds
Among the eight sites hosting these games, three have varying degrees of Rust Belt credibility.
The first, Buffalo, is a charter member. For Michigan fans, the NCAA’s desire to keep teams close to home means while they might have dreamed of games in San Diego or Tampa, they got stuck with B-Lo. (By cutting through Canada along the northern shore of Lake Erie, the driving time from Ann Arbor (MI) to Buffalo is less than five hours.)
The second, St. Louis, may raise a few eyebrows given its non-Great-Lakes location. But I went to college there—trust me, it’s the Rust Belt.
Finally, there’s Philadelphia, which is probably too far east and slightly too nice to qualify, but population loss, extremely angry sports fans, and violent crime keep it in the discussion.
The Regionals (Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight)
Among the four sites hosting these games, one warrants a closer look, even though such a look is typically met with incredulity.
Chicago‘s immense wealth and economic productivity mask a few red flags—Lake Michigan, shuttered steel mills, population loss, and a proclivity toward homicides.
Let’s just say the rust-dar has been triggered.
The Final Four
This year’s host, Indianapolis, is an outlier.
It’s in a Rust Belt state, though the city itself has never truly lost population. In fact, it’s growing at a healthy clip.
That said, no one brags about living in Indianapolis, so it gets an honorary rust-orate.
The Teams
Using the Rust Belt mnemonic My Wife Is Pissed Off Knowing My Mistakes Include Not Working, these are the teams—by state—that have applied rust remover and gone dancing.
Minnesota
None
Wisconsin
University of Wisconsin
Illinois
University of Illinois
Pennsylvania
Lehigh University
University of Pennsylvania
Villanova University
Ohio
Miami University (Miami of Ohio)
Ohio State University
University of Akron
Wright State University
Kentucky
University of Kentucky
University of Louisville
Michigan
Michigan State University
University of Michigan
Missouri
Saint Louis University
University of Missouri
Indiana
Purdue University
New York
Hofstra University*
Long Island University*
St. John’s University*
Siena University
(*From Downstate New York, making the appearance on this list rather fraudulent)
West Virginia
None
To all the cities and teams representing the Rust Belt, remember, we’ve lost enough already.
