INDIANAPOLIS — This year’s N.C.A.A. men’s basketball tournament is a metaphorical color wheel. Green for the hundreds of millions of dollars it will reap, even without fans. Red for the anger that some players are expressing over being cut out of the profits they generate. And blue for the isolation others are feeling while marooned in a hotel at the start of 68-team, three-week game of survivor.
Chromatically speaking, however, those pale in comparison to the Midwest bracket, where there is — in very living color — a pigment that is not often a primary one in the world of sports: orange.