March Madness comes around every year and is one of the most watched sporting events. The men’s Final Four games averaged 15.5 million viewers, according to ncaa.org.
March Madness is the NCAA basketball tournament. In the NCAA D1 level, 68 teams get to participate in a single elimination bracket until there is a champion. There are two paths for a team to earn a bid to the NCAA tournament. One way is that all 31 conference winners receive an automatic bid and the second way to get an invitation is an at-large bid. After the regular season and conference tournaments, the selection committee will select the 37 best teams that did not win their conference championship, according to ncaa.com.
March Madness started off with Selection Sunday. On March 15, the selection committee revealed the full NCAA bracket, including every team with its seeding and first round matchup. There are 16 seeds, four teams in each seeding and four regions in the bracket: the East, West, South and Midwest. The higher seeds are put in a favorable location for their school, but the committee tries to keep teams as geographically close as possible, according to ncaa.com.
The first games that happened were the first four games. These games were played on Tuesday and Wednesday night after Selection Sunday. The last four at-large teams play for the last two 11 seeds. The last four conference winners play for the last two spots in the 16 seed, according to ncaa.com.
The first round can be seen as one of the most boring rounds because the lower seeds play against the higher ones. For example, the one seed plays the 16 seed and the two seed plays the 15 seed. But this allows for upsets to happen. This is when the team that was not expected to win wins, a common occurrence in March Madness. In the last 34 of 40 tournaments, a 12 seed has beaten a five seed in a first round matchup, according to ncaa.com.
After the first round comes the round of 32. This is when the Elite teams continue to dominate, and the Cinderella stories start to begin, which is when a team is more successful than expected. This is when those lower seeded teams start to beat more and more good teams. This could be seen in 2022 when 15 seeded Saint Peter’s went to the Elite Eight, and in 2024 when 11 seed North Carolina State went all the way to the final four, according to ncaa.com.
Then March Madness reaches the Sweet Sixteen. This is when the bracket is once again cut in half and 16 teams are left. Teams are now three wins away from a national tournament. The games begin to feature more powerful matchups and some Cinderella runs begin to come to an end. The most dominant teams can start to take over and pick off some of the Cinderella runs. Since 1985, only 32 teams that were 12 seeds or higher have made the Sweet Sixteen while 356 four seeds or lower have made the Sweet Sixteen, according to ncaa.com.
Following the Sweet Sixteen, the Elite Eight begins. This round mostly features the top teams in college basketball as most Cinderella runs come to an end. Sometimes, there can still be a Cinderella or two left but mostly the Elite teams will go head to head. Since higher level teams will be playing against evenly matched teams, scores will be much closer. In the last 10 years, the average margin of victory in the Elite Eight is approximately 9.6 points and 62.5% if games have a single digit margin of victory, according to nytimes.com.
Lastly comes the Final Four. Each winner from every region will face off to compete for the national championship. Each year the final four is held somewhere different and is where the National Championship will also be held. In 2025, all four one seeds made the Final Four. On the other hand, all four teams from the 2023 Final Four were a four seed or higher and it even included nine seed Florida Atlantic University. The Final Four was on April 4 and was followed by the National Championship on April 6, where the University of Michigan defeated the University of Connecticut, according to ncaa.com.
The whole NCAA tournament can be seen as one of the craziest playoffs there is for sports and is why it was given its name March Madness. CBS broadcaster Brent Musburger used the term March Madness to describe the chaotic and exciting tournament and the term just stuck ever since, according to ncaa.com.
There has never been a confirmed perfect bracket by a fan, but every year, fans still make at least one in hope of having the perfect March Madness bracket. If someone made a bracket for each possible outcome, there would be 9 quintillion different outcomes, according to mwcconnection.com.
