How are teams selected for ncaa basketball tournament

March Madness | The TwinSpires Edge

Home

college basketball

Since 1939, the men’s NCAA Division I basketball tournament, or March Madness, has been held annually at the end of college basketball’s regular season. The single-elimination tournament is one of the most watched sporting events in the United States and generates a ton of betting action across the country.

Below you will find all the stats and info you need to gear up for college basketball’s highly anticipated postseason competition. 

Gonzaga Bulldogs

+500

Kentucky Wildcats

+850

Arizona Wildcats

+900

Auburn Tigers

+900

Purdue Boilermakers

+1050

Baylor Bears

+1200

Duke Blue Devils

+1200

Kansas Jayhawks

+1500

UCLA Bruins

+2200

Illinois Fighting Illini

+2300

When is the 2022 NCAA tournament?

March Madness will begin on Tuesday, March 15 at 4 p. m. ET, with the First Four—or play-in—stage of competition. The official first round, featuring 64 teams, will take place Thursday and Friday, March 17-18, before the round of 32 on Saturday and Sunday, March 19-20.

The Sweet 16 and Elite 8 occur the following weekend, March 24 through March 27. Caesars Superdome in New Orleans will host the Final Four, which includes the national semifinal championship game on the evening of Monday, April 4.

Who can make the NCAA tournament?

In order to qualify for March Madness, a Division I college basketball team must either win its conference tournament or receive an “at-large” bid from the NCAA tournament selection committee.

A total of 68 teams play in the tournament, with 32 of those teams earning an automatic bid by winning their conference tournament. The 36 remaining tournament bids are granted by the selection committee and are revealed on Selection Sunday.

The committee is also in charge of seeding and placing each team in one of four regions of the tournament bracket: the East, West, Midwest and South. Each region will be seeded 1-16.

The selection committee is currently comprised of eight athletic directors and two conference commissioners in Division I men’s and women’s athletics. Members serve a five-year term.

Duncan Robinson (22) of the Michigan Wolverines cuts down the net to celebrate the victory during the NCAA Division I Men's Championship Elite Eight round basketball game between the Florida State Seminoles and the Michigan Wolverines. (Photo by Chris Williams/Icon Sportswire)

How can I watch the NCAA tournament?

truTV and TBS will air the First Four, then split first- and second-round coverage with CBS, TBS, and TNT.  

TBS and CBS will televise the Sweet 16 and Elite, while the Final Four and NCAA National Championship Game can be found exclusively on CBS.

How long are March Madness games?

March Madness will follow the standard rules of a regular-season college basketball game, with two 20-minute halves. The overtime period is five minutes long and may be repeated as many times as necessary to determine a winner.

What is the Final Four?

The Elite Eight will decide the champion of each of the four regions in the NCAA tournament. The winner from the East, West, Midwest and South move on to the Final Four to play in the national semifinal games. 

The Final Four includes both the semifinal round and the championship game on Monday, April 5.

Caesars Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana. (Photo by Shutterstock)

Where is the Final Four?

Caesars Superdome, home to the New Orleans Saints, will host the Final Four from April 2-4.

What time is the national championship game?

Tipoff of the national championship game is scheduled for 9 p. m. ET Eastern on Monday, April 4.

From 1964 to 1995, the UCLA Bruins accumulated 11 national championship titles, 10 of those under head coach John Wooden.

The University of Kentucky, a longtime elite program in college basketball, earned its first championship in 1948 and most recent in 2012. ACC schools North Carolina and Duke are neck-and-neck for titles, with six and five, respectively, and have each won one in the last five years.

The Indiana Hoosiers also rank high with five championships, but the school hasn't experienced the NCAA's ultimate glory since 1987, with head coach Bob Knight.

The University of Louisville hung championship banners in 1980 and 1986 with head coach Denny Crum, and again in 2013 with Rick Pitino. However, because of NCAA violations, the school had to vacate its 2013 championship and two Final Four appearances. Louisville is the only school in NCAA history to have a men's basketball championship vacated.

UCLA head coach John Wooden's record of 10 national championships may never be touched, but "Coach K" (Mike Krzyzewski) is hot on his track, with five. The Duke basketball coach's teams regularly rank in the AP Top 25 poll and are often considered one of the favorites in the NCAA tournament each year.

A statue of former Purdue Boilermaker player John Wooden is seen outside of Mackey Arena. (Photo by Michael Allio/Icon Sportswire)

Kentucky legend Adolph Rupp led the school to the Promised Land four times (1948, 1949, 1951 and 1958) during his tenure. There is a three-way tie for fourth-most wins, as UConn's Jim Calhoun, Indiana's Bob Knight, and Roy Williams each own three titles. Williams collected his trio of banners with North Carolina in 2005, 2009 and 2017. He also guided the Kansas Jayhawks to a national title game, where they fell to Syracuse in 2003.

Based on current conference membership, the ACC owns the most NCAA titles. North Carolina, Duke, North Carolina State, Louisville, Syracuse and Virginia have each claimed at least one national championship. The Cavaliers most recently won the tournament in 2019.

The Oregon Ducks of the Pac-12 triumphed in the first national championship game in 1939. Since then, the Pac-12 has earned 16 titles among Stanford, Utah, Cal, UCLA and Arizona. UCLA won seven in a row from 1967-1973, then again in 1975, the last season Wooden coached for the Bruins. Wooden also achieved back-to-back titles in 1964 and 1965.

When is Selection Sunday?

Selection Sunday will take place on Sunday, March 13 at 6 p.m. ET,  and will air on CBS.

How does seeding work?

The selection committee will offer 36 at-large bids to the NCAA tournament in addition to 32 automatic bids for those teams that won their conference tournament. 

The committee will look at record, strength of schedule and quality of wins and losses, among other factors, to rank the field of teams from 1 to 68. Theoretically, the top four teams will earn the No. 1 seeds, and the next four on the list will receive the No. 2 seeds, and so on.

The committee strives for balance in each of the East, West, Midwest and South regions. The overall No. 1 seed should play the weakest No. 2 seed, and that pattern should follow down the line from the No. 3 seeds to No. 16 seeds for each region. 

What is the First Four?  

In 2011, the NCAA expanded the men's tournament to 68 teams and added a "First Four" play-in stage that included eight teams. Those eight teams hold the four lowest-seeded automatic bids and four lowest-seeded at-large bids.

The four winners of the First Four games move on to the field of 64 to compete in the first round of the tournament.

From 1985 to 2001, the NCAA tournament followed a 64-team format, until the Mountain West Conference joined Division I. To accomodate an additional automatic bid, which bumped the field to 65, the NCAA created one play-in game before the opening round. Since the arrival of the First Four in 2011, the tournament has maintained the same 68-team format.

The University of Dayton Arena in Ohio is the annual host site of the First Four games.

How many rounds are in the NCAA tournament?

There are six rounds of the NCAA tournament, not including the First Four play-in round.

Sixty-four teams participate in the first round. From there, the field is narrowed down to 32 for the second round of competition.

The third round is referred to as the Sweet 16, or regional semifinal, and the fourth round is best known as the Elite Eight or regional final. 

The fifth round, or national semifinal, is part of the Final Four, as is the sixth round, the national championship game.

Where can I download a March Madness bracket?

You can fill our our official TwinSpires Sports downloadable March Madness bracket by clicking here.

It's been estimated that around 70 million brackets are filled out each year across the country for company or family pools and nationwide contests.

The odds of filling out a perfect bracket are about 1 in 120.6 billion—if you know something about basketball. If you filled out your bracket by flipping a coin or blindly guessing, your odds are much higher.

No one has filled out a perfect bracket—that we know of—in the history of the NCAA tournament.

NCAA Final Four Betting Trends

20 of the last 21 Final Four Champions Have Been East Coast Teams

The only team that could be considered following in this trend for this year’s Final Four is Virginia. With a state that does touch the East Coast, does the basketball world truly count Virginia as an East Coast team? Michigan State is from the Midwest, while Auburn is from the South and Texas Tech is a Southwest team, thus they would not come as close to fitting the mold. If the Cavaliers fit the narrative of East Coast, then the trend could very well continue to prove true.

Favorites Usually Dominate in Final Four Semifinals

If this trend holds, Michigan State will beat Texas Tech and Virginia will beat Auburn. I’ve got Texas Tech upsetting MSU and Auburn upsetting UVA. So, I’ve thrown out this trend!

Underdogs Have Performed Well in the Finals

UNC won as a favorite in 2017. Last year, Villanova won as the favorite. But, before those two chalked it up, Nova beat North Carolina as a dog in 2016, Duke upset Wisconsin as a slight dog in 2015, and Connecticut upset Kentucky as a major underdog in 2014.

Will any of the three trends listed above hold? Or, will Auburn and Texas Tech prove best? Get your popcorn ready and watch one of the greatest sports events in the U.S., the annual NCAA College Basketball Final Four!

NCAA Final Four Notable Games

1975 National Championship – UCLA 92, Kentucky 85

The great John Wooden won his final championship. It was the Wizard of Westwood’s 10th title.

1979 National Championship – Michigan State 75, Indiana State 64

Magic and Bird started one of the most important rivalries in NBA history while still in college.

1983 National Championship – NC State 54, Houston 52

NC State upset Phi Slamma Jamma with a last-second shot, handing Jimmy Valvano the NCAA Final Four trophy. Valvano would end up starting the Jimmy V. Foundation, one of the most important cancer research non-profit organizations in the world.

1985 National Championship – Villanova 66, Georgetown 64

Villanova beats Georgetown in one of the biggest upsets in Final Four history.

1991 National Championship – Duke 72, Kansas 65

Coach Mike Krzyzewski wins his first of five national championships by beating Roy Williams- coached Kansas. The Blue Devils upset heavily favored UNLV in the semifinals. Today, Williams coaches North Carolina, which means Coach K and Williams have continued the rivalry that started in 1991.

2022 College Basketball Championship Regions and Dates

• Regions: South, East, West, Midwest
• Inaugural Game: March 17, 1939
• Current Number of Teams Participating: 68
• 2022 NCAA National Championship Location: Caesars Superdome, New Orleans, Louisiana
• 2022 NCAA National Championship Date: Monday, April 4, 2022

Behind the Scenes: How the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee Really Works | News, Scores, Highlights, Stats, and Rumors

B/R

INDIANAPOLIS — How much do you know about how the NCAA tournament field comes together?

You know how to fill out a bracket. You might even know how to build a projected bracket. But do you really know what goes into the NCAA selection committee choosing 68 of the 351 Division I basketball teams?

Recently, some of us got a much better idea.

March Madness Media Coordinator David Worlock hosted select media types for a mock selection committee at NCAA headquarters in Indianapolis in early February.

That might sound like March Madness fantasy camp, but we were given extensive access to Worlock—who's been in the room and knows how the sausage is made—along with Selection Committee Chairman Scott Barnes and other committee members and tournament executives. 

The event was run exactly as the real committee is run, with step-by-step guidance from those who are in the room while the real committee makes its decisions, and it offered some real insights into what goes into those decisions.

For instance, do you assume that the decision on what teams will be the "Last Four In" is excruciating? Nope. Turns out, the decision-making process doesn't change at all at that stage. No extra debate over two or three teams for the final spot, just the exact same method right down to the bitter end: pick eight, rank eight, elect four.

But that's getting ahead of things. From the beginning, here's what I learned about the selection process:

Joe Robbins/Getty Images

• To set the scene, the committee meets in a conference room at the nearby Conrad Hilton, and there are no TVs in the room—so it's not like the members are watching conference tournament games throughout the process. There are seven or eight TVs in the lounge, and committee members take regular breaks there. They also always go out to an Italian restaurant called Iaria's on the Wednesday before Selection Sunday, and they always have an ice cream sundae bar "on tap" throughout the week.

• "Lockdown"—as the selection committee affectionately refers to its time together leading up to Selection Sunday—begins on Wednesday morning of Championship Week. There are 10 committee members. Each committee member submits a ballot of the teams he or she believes should be in the field as at-large bids, as well as teams that deserve to be under consideration. Teams that get eight or more votes are placed into the field to be seeded later, and remaining teams that receive at least three votes go to the "under consideration" board.

• From there, here's the selection process for the rest of the teams: Each committee member selects eight teams from the "under consideration" board, in no particular order. The eight teams with the most votes are then ranked from top to bottom by each committee member. The top four vote-getters are moved into the field, while the other four are placed in holding while the committee goes back to the "under consideration" board to vote for what it feels are the eight best teams on the list. The top four from that round of voting join the four that were in holding, and then it ranks from top to bottom again.

• Then the committee does it again. And again. And again. And again. It's like Groundhog Day on steroids. There are more than 100 formal voting rounds—and plenty of informal ones during the "scrubbing process" (more on that shortly). Seeding the field is the same idea, except the top four vote-getters are placed into the field in order of votes received.

• Worlock said there has been no formal discussion of expanding the field since 2010. You can imagine why.

• Before, during and after these 100-plus votes is when all the debating and analyzing takes place. And, yes, there are frequent tiebreaking votes. The primary responsibility of the committee chair—this year, it's Barnes, athletic director of Utah State—is to control the pace of the discussions and to be the committee's face for interviews. His votes don't count for two points or anything like that.

Michael Conroy/Associated Press

• At multiple times during the week—partially to account for results of conference tournaments and partially just for quality assurance—the committee goes through a "scrubbing process. " This consists of starting at the very top of the list and comparing No. 1 overall to No. 2 overall to decide if they should be swapped. Then it's on to No. 2 vs. No. 3, and so on down the line. If six of the 10 committee members vote for a swap, it happens, and then the newly higher-seeded team is immediately compared to the team now above it to determine if it should climb any higher.

• So how does the committee decide which teams are better? I asked various committee members in attendance and NCAA executives who have been in the room in the past and came up with a few consensus answers. To start, according to one NCAA executive, past seasons have zero impact. You might be hesitant to pick Gonzaga or Wichita State because of how they fared as No. 1 seeds in recent tournaments, but all the committee cares about is evaluating teams on games played this season.

• According to Oklahoma AD Joe Castiglione, in the eyes of most committee members, who you beat is more important than who beat you. There's no cut-and-dried formula for how many bad losses can be canceled out by a great win, but it certainly sounds like a resume with two great wins and four bad losses is better than one with no great wins and no bad losses.

Jin Lee/Associated Press

• Another executive said computer numbers—especially RPI (rating percentage index)—are nothing short of critical, but the eye test is just as big of a factor, which is something the committee has claimed for years. Each committee member watches hundreds of games each season.

• While some computer numbers take scoring margin into account, it's apparently otherwise not overtly discussed by the selection committee. In the argument over BYU as a bubble team, I noted that the Cougars had not been beaten by more than seven points in the entire season and that several of their losses were decided in overtime. One of the NCAA folks immediately interjected, "What you just said would never actually be discussed. "

• Likewise, they said, a conference's overall RPI would never be brought up, nor would where teams finished in their conference standings. Conference record doesn't even appear on the "nitty-gritty sheets" (similarly formatted to ESPN's) that committee members use for overviews of teams. So any time you hear someone talking about a team needing to get to .500 in Big 12 play or needing 12 Big Ten wins to get in, feel free to ignore it.

• The moniker committee members use for teams whose "nitty-gritty sheets" lean too far right (filled with games against teams ranked outside the Top 150 in RPI), according to Worlock: "Romney Resume."

• The results of major conference tournaments—particularly the championship games played on Selection Sunday—also aren't nearly as drastic as many want to believe. Worlock said that even if Kentucky had beaten Florida (the No. 1 overall seed) in last year's SEC Championship Game, the Wildcats were still going to be the No. 8 seed in the Midwest Region.

USA TODAY Sports

• Then there are the games teams would like ignored. Sorry, Tulsa, but no luck. The Golden Hurricane's loss to D-II Southeastern Oklahoma State is not factored into their RPI or SOS (strength of schedule) numbers, but Worlock said, "It wasn't an exhibition, so it counts. The committee is certainly aware that it took place." In addition to that game's impact on Tulsa's resume, several committee members expressed the sentiment that scheduling D-II opponents—particularly more than one in a given season—does not look good for a team's intent to schedule quality opponents, and that losing one of those games is just a terrible idea. 

• According to Director of the Men's Basketball Championship L.J. Wright, there is a program in place to combat gamesmanship among committee members. At the time of the mock selection committee, Gonzaga vs. Wisconsin for the final No. 1 seed was a hot debate. If I really wanted Gonzaga as that fourth No. 1 seed and decided to put the Bulldogs at No. 1 overall and Wisconsin at the bottom of my ballot, it would send up all sorts of red flags.

• Committee members aren't coming in without preconceived notions. According to Worlock, on a weekly basis throughout the season, a plethora of ratings lists (RPI, BPI, Sagarin, KenPom, etc.) are sent out to the committee members. Requests by media members to be added to this mailing list were sadly declined.

• In addition to that weekly data, one coach from each conference submits a "Coaches Advisory Poll" on the first of each month, ranking the teams in his conference. It was mentioned that many coaches probably delegate the task to an assistant, but that Memphis' Josh Pastner takes this responsibility very seriously.

Ethan Miller/Getty Images

• Worlock mentioned that he monitors the Bracket Matrix throughout the week, but no need to fear that any Joe Schmo with a WordPress account might be impacting what the committee does. "It serves as a checks and balances," Worlock said via email. "I don't spend time looking at the individual brackets, but if a team is projecting as a 2 seed on the matrix and the committee has them as a 4, I'd talk about it with Dan Gavitt [VP of men's basketball championships]. The discussion might end there, but it could be something that Dan brings to the chair."

• He also uses the matrix, he said, "to try and anticipate what questions we will get from the media."

• Worlock said the committee is open to the idea of releasing in-season updates, similar to what the College Football Playoff committee did this past season. It probably wouldn't release full projections of the field, but it would consider something like what the women's selection committee did this February—announcing the four No. 1 seeds as well as the 16 next-best teams in no particular order.

• Each committee member is responsible for monitoring three to four specific conferences and becoming the subject-matter expert for debates involving those teams. For example, I acted as Stanford's Bernard Muir in the mock selection process and was responsible for monitoring the WCC, MAAC and Southland.

Lauren Victoria Burke/Associated Press

• Athletic directors are required to leave the room when their team is being discussed, and conference executives when any team from their conference is being discussed. They can't vote if their team or teams are on a ballot and can "only answer factual questions about their team," Worlock said. "When 24 or fewer teams are in the pool of teams from which we are selecting or seeding, and one of the teams is represented by a committee member, that person is not allowed to participate in that vote. And again, if the team comes up for discussion, they must leave the room."

• As an example of how that rule works, in representing Muir—whose Stanford team was one of the last four teams into our field in mid-February—I was unable to vote in anything other than tiebreakers for several hours, and I was not alone. With committee representation from BYU, LSU, Michigan State and Conference USA, there was one round of voting near the end in which only five of the 10 committee members were allowed to vote. In most seasons, this rule might seem necessary for avoiding questions of partiality. But this year it might mean as few as five people are deciding those important "Last Four In" decisions.

• The actual bracketing of the field usually doesn't begin until Sunday afternoon. There are sub-committees of three or four members for the first quadrant (top 16 teams), fourth quadrant (bottom 18 teams) and "First Four" who determine if there should be a debate for the full committee in regard to potentially swapping two teams in their respective section of the bracket.

• Geography is the supreme ruler during bracketing. Senior Web Developer Colin Chappell has designed a program (that I would pay good money for) that notes exactly how many miles a team would need to travel to reach the various options for regional and sub-regional locations. In addition to miles, there is a lot of discussion about how many time zones a team would need to travel. The top 16 teams are placed by region and then by sub-region.

• Where in previous years there was an "S-curve," in which (if possible) the top No. 2 seed was matched up against the bottom No. 1 seed, teams are now kept as close to home as possible while still remaining on their true seed line. So even if Wisconsin is the top No. 2 seed, get ready to see the Badgers in the Midwest Region opposite Kentucky. Cleveland would be the preferred regional location for each. 

Tom Pennington/Getty Images

• That seems like a good time for a geographical interlude: Did you know the University of Arizona is closer to Omaha than it is to Portland by more than 100 miles? This was the most gasp-worthy revelation of the week for those in the room.

• By the time we were building the bracket, there was very little debating and a lot of simply watching the pieces come together like a jigsaw puzzle. There's no room for conspiracies and creating "juicy" pairings (i.e. Kentucky and Louisville meeting in the Sweet 16 last season), no matter what the conspiracy theorists say. Asked the most surprising thing he learned from the experience, Will Haskett of the Horizon League Network said, "When it comes to placing the teams in the actual bracket, there is absolutely no way for the committee to create those conspiracies. There is no such thing as an orchestrated matchup."

Kerry Miller covers college basketball for Bleacher Report. You can follow him on Twitter @kerrancejames.

TJ

Oftop

Zhenya Kuzmin March 20, 2017

Why Americans love the varsity basketball tournament known as "March Madness": the atmosphere, future superstars, and $12 billion in stakes.

Since March 18, 2017, the United States has been briefly distracted from the discussion of Donald Trump. The reason for this was the beginning of the "March Madness" - the playoff stage (elimination games) of the basketball championship among the country's colleges. The National Collegiate Association (NCAA) holds tournaments in all sports, but "madness" has become a separate phenomenon in American popular culture.

The first student association tournament was held in 1939 and ended with the victory of the University of Oregon. For more than 40 years, the draw was held annually, but was not popular among fans. At the same time, future basketball legends played in the NCAA at different times, and the US student team regularly won the Olympic Games.

At first, eight colleges played the tournament, but every year their number increased. In the 1970s, college basketball hit television and began to win fans across the country. However, TV channels showed matches recorded and with poor quality.

University of North Carolina student Michael Jordan (right)

In 1980, the then-unknown television channel ESPN showed all the matches available to it live and prime time. NBC owned the rights to most of the games in the college tournament, so ESPN made a bet on small teams that could make a splash in the association. The channel for the duration of the knockout matches withdrew from other sports and broadcast only basketball 24 hours a day.

After that, the popularity of the NCAA only increased. At 19In 1982, CBS commentator Brent Musburger called the tournament March madness, and the name stuck. Later, the Illinois School Teams Association claimed the rights to the term "March Madness" (Musburger made no secret of hearing it in Chicago). As a result, the court allowed both leagues to use the name, and later the NCAA bought all the rights.

By 2005, March Madness had become the second most popular sporting event in the country, behind only the Super Bowl. Every year, companies in the US lose nearly two billion dollars to employees whose productivity drops during the "madness". In March 2017, the Pentagon even officially asked employees not to watch student matches at work.

The US Collegiate Athletic Association is made up of more than a thousand colleges and universities across the country that are eligible to compete in a variety of sports. At the same time, the basketball top division has 347 teams that play in several groups during the year, divided by region.

However, the playoffs are determined according to a confusing system: only 32 of the 68 teams that have become champions in their regions get there based on sports performance. The remaining 36 are selected by a special committee that monitors the progress of universities throughout the year. He also compiles the standings of knockout games.

Mark Hollis, Chairman of the NCAA Select Committee

The commission is based primarily on merit, but the NCAA also focuses on student learning. Because of this, scandals periodically arise in the league related to inflated marks for control tests and rates invented specifically for players.

In 2014, the media learned that the University of North Carolina (for which Michael Jordan once played) since 1992 had a whole system of dummy objects through which hundreds of athletes passed. The courses were created only on paper, and the teachers themselves wrote the work for the players, thereby increasing the average academic score of the athletes.

The decision of the election committee remains secret and is only revealed on a certain day on national television. Members of the commission not only select teams, but determine their strength (the team with the first seed number has an easier path to the final). Because of this, for some universities, the first victories appear already at this stage.

After the play-off bracket is formed, the tournament starts. In a few days, the teams reach the stage when 16 teams remain (“sweet 16”), after which there is a stage called the “elite eight” and the “final four” - the semi-final and the final, which are already played in a pre-selected city. The whole "March Madness" lasts no more than two weeks.

The huge popularity of the NCAA tournament is due to the special atmosphere of the "March Madness". Many American fans have become disillusioned with professional sports, which in the US have become a form of leisure with expensive seats and less noisy fans. In turn, the student championship offers the audience the opportunity to watch basketball players who do not receive money for their game and play for their university.

The unpredictability of the tournament also plays its role - any team can win any. Some matches cause such a stir that they have to be held not in basketball stadiums, but in football arenas. According to Wallethub, almost 20,000 fans attend college playoff games on average.

National television also loves March Madness. The cost of a 30-second commercial for the NCAA Championship Finals is about $1.5 million ($2 million at the Oscars, $5 million at the Super Bowl).

Student tournament is a great opportunity to watch future superstars. According to the rules of the National Basketball Association (NBA), you can only get into the main professional league of the country after 19 years.

This means that after leaving school (in the US, graduates are usually 18 years old) players have to choose: either devote a year to self-training (no one wants this), leave to play in the European Championships (a few), or spend at least a year in the NCAA team (the vast majority players).

Universities across the country are scouting for talent offering athletic scholarships to help pay for college tuition. Additional earnings or other ways to attract players to the NCAA are prohibited - the league is trying to lure viewers with a sports principle. Because of this system of getting into the NBA, almost all current stars have been played for one university or another. And the playoffs are their best way to show themselves on national television.

Celebrities love March Madness. At NCAA matches, you can often meet actors, musicians and politicians who come to support their native universities. Or individuals - actor Bill Murray attends Javier University games because his son coaches the team.

Jennifer Lawrence, University of Louisville

Bill Murray, Javier University

Bill Clinton, University of Arkansas

Drake, University of Kentucky

Justin Timberlake, University of Memphis

Another reason for the March Madness's popularity is the league table tradition. Several million Americans try to predict match results each year, and playoff bracket prediction has become part of US popular culture. However, they not only try to guess the winner, but also put money on it.

"March Madness" is the most betted event in the country, and this figure is growing every year. According to The Wall Street Journal, over 100 million people are betting $12 billion. The Super Bowl, the most watched sporting event in the US, has only 10 billion.

At the same time, only 3% of bets are legal, because they can only be made in Las Vegas casinos or on the official websites of NCAA partners (like ESPN). The remaining 97% are office disputes, illegal bookmakers and unlicensed online services.

It's not just ordinary Americans who make their predictions. Since 2009, US President Barack Obama has been listing his expectations for March Madness every year. He not only named his favorite, but also filled out the table, trying to guess the result of each playoff game.

In 2017, the country's new president, Donald Trump, "politely declined" ESPN's request to continue the tradition. However, Obama then decided to once again share his opinion with the media about the NCAA tournament. Over the years, he has never been able to correctly name the winner, although over the years of his presidency he began to guess the tournament grid 75% more accurately.

But not only Obama can not imagine the course of the tournament. Wallethub noted that guessing all the results is twice as difficult as winning the Mega Millions lottery twice in a row, while buying only one ticket at a time. The probability of accidentally compiling an "error-free table" is estimated by experts at 1 in 128 million.

In 2014, billionaire Warren Buffett promised $1 million to anyone who could correctly name all the sweet 16 participants. However, no one could - and a year later Buffett promised the same amount for the correct results of the first round of elimination games.

For the convenience of users, the CBS channel, which broadcasts Madness matches, has created a special website that allows you to compile a table online and compare it with the playoffs. But the popularity of betting and tabulation is so high that for the second year in a row it has not been able to cope with the influx of people who want to see their selection a few minutes before the start of the first matches.

"March Madness" is widely discussed not only at matches or in the office, but in social networks. One of the most famous college championship stories is that of Louisville student Kevin Ware. In 2013, during the March Madness, he landed badly and broke his leg in two places. The game was broadcast on national television, and the media called the student's injury one of the worst in basketball history.

After the match, social media users staged a massive campaign in support of Ware. The student was supported by athletes and celebrities from other fields, and the #PrayForWare hashtag hit the top of Twitter.

The Louisville team eventually became the March Madness champion and dedicated the victory to their quarterback. After graduating from university, Ware continued to play basketball and moved to Europe.

Kevin Ware

In 2016, Villanova University won the NCAA Tournament by defeating the North Carolina Tar Hills 77-74. The ending of this meeting became the personification of the whole "March Madness": a minute and a half before the end of the match, students from North Carolina managed to catch up with the opponent, but Villanova's basketball player brought victory to his national team with a throw to the sound of a siren.

Fans have already called this final one of the most spectacular in the history of the tournament.

However, the very next year, Villanova could not even reach the top 16 stage, losing in the last seconds to a team from the University of Wisconsin.

By March 20, 2017, almost all participants of the "sweet 16" were determined in the tournament, and some game situations managed to go beyond the circle of sports fans and gained popularity on the network. One of those moments was the reaction of the child to the loss of Northwestern University.

The crying boy quickly became a meme. Later, Fox Sport journalists reported that he is the son of the vice president of Severo-Western University for sports operations and recreation.

This year's March Madness favorites are teams from Duke, North Carolina and Kentucky. Two of them made the top 16 and continue to play in the tournament, and Duke ended his performance in the tournament. In such an unpredictable tournament as the NCAA championship, absolutely any team can become a winner. And that's the main reason March Madness is adored by millions of people across America.

Madness in March - iSport.ua

Surprisingly, the student competition is very popular in the US. It's not uncommon to hear comments that March Madness, as the NCAA basketball finals are unofficially called, is far more interesting than the NBA playoffs.

This, at first glance, untenable statement is supported by quite logical arguments: the pros play for money and for the sake of contracts, and the students act purely on an amateur basis and fight on the court for the honor of the college and their own glory.

In the best-of-one tournament of the Olympic system, which is Madness, where small teams compete alongside favorites and recognized leaders, sensational sensations are practically guaranteed.

A national hobby is the prediction of a Cinderella team, in our terminology a dark horse, a little-known club that, thanks to teamwork and fortitude, is able to unexpectedly knock out a highly seeded team from the draw.

They were students

What about the principled confrontations? After all, the competition between universities that often began at the end of the century before last and to this day is expressed in irreconcilable enmity on sports grounds.

The intensity of passions in such fundamental derbies as North Carolina - Duke, Louisville - Kentucky or Kansas - Kansas State does not depend on the current position of the teams. In any case, the battle until the last seconds is guaranteed.

NCAA championship games have always produced future stars: Bill Russell, Wilt Chamberlain, Elgin Baylor, Jerry West, Lew Alcindor (better known as Kareem-Abdul Jabar), Irvin Johnson turned Magic, Isaiah Thomas, Hakim Olajiwon, Patrick Ewing, Carmelo Anthony - this is not a complete list of famous players who were recognized as the best in March.

Later, these athletes went on to dizzying professional careers, but those who saw them play in their younger years still say that they watched real and uncut talent.

True, viewing college basketball only through the narrow prism of the forge of personnel for the NBA is a big waste. The NCAA is interesting in itself, it is its own world, with special laws and principles. Here, for example, team tactics in colleges prevail over the individual skill of individual players. This should appeal to fans of smart, intelligent basketball.

The formula of happiness

As for the tournament itself, its formula, like everything ingenious, is simple. The first and most prestigious NCAA division consists of 33 conferences, each of which can differ both in the number of teams and in their strength.

31 conference champions receive an automatic pass to Martowsok Madness, the remaining 34 lucky ones are carefully selected by a special selection committee according to the rating and authority of the conference in which they play.

The selection process itself causes a serious stir, the apotheosis of which is Election Sunday, the day when the committee sorts out the teams and presents the championship scheme.

Scheme is nothing but a possible path of the club in the tournament distance. Exactly the same as, say, the World Cup playoffs. 64 elected (before the first round, teams numbered 65 and 64 play a match between themselves for the right to participate in the main competition) are divided into 4 large groups.

Each group has 16 teams respectively. The first seeded club plays the 16th, the second seeded 15th, and so on. As a rule, the hottest battles take place between the eighth and ninth teams, which are approximately equal in strength, although no one is immune from surprises. It is not uncommon for matches with one, two or even three overtimes.

After the first two rounds, which take place in an extremely short time frame, the 16 most successful ones remain, this stage is called: "Sweet Sixteen". Then comes the Elite Eight and finally the Final Four, an event as popular as the NBA playoffs, MLB or even the NFL.

Semi-finals and finals are held in large multifunctional indoor stadiums. This year the decisive games will be held at the Lucas Oil Stadium in Indiana. The home of the Indianapolis Colts of the National Football League can accommodate about 70,000 basketball fans, and even with such an impressive figure, a ticket to the action remains a huge deficit.

Bracketology

The entire list of tournament participants will be known, as mentioned earlier, only on Sunday, but the favorites on paper can be named right now.

The Kansas Jayhawks currently number one in the rankings. The squad, led by Bill Self, who, by the way, had already won the tournament in 2008, spent the season with enviable stability. Only 4 weeks out of 17 Kansas were not at the top of the table of the best teams in the country.

The leaders of the club are: attacking guard Javier Henry - a born scorer, capable of hitting the basket from any position, point guard Sherron Collins, having a small height for basketball, only 180 cm, is distinguished by lightning speed and enviable strength, while being the most productive in your team.

And, of course, center Cole Aldrich, cementing the Jayhawks defense.

The strongest team in the NCAA is without a doubt the University of Kentucky. The main star of the Wild Cats - John Wall is predicted by experts as the first number of the upcoming NBA draft. This dispatcher can literally do everything on the court: score points, give assists and even rebound.

His partner DeMarcus Cousins ​​is one of the most promising big ones. Thanks to his natural gifts and excellent school, Cousins ​​is incredibly dangerous in the paint under his own and other people's shield. The third, but far from superfluous, leader of Kentucky is power forward Patrick Patterson - an athlete with a capital letter.

A nice team also got to Syracuse. The Orange wingmen forward Wesley Johnson and sniper Andy Rautins leave a very good impression with their game and are ready to compete for the highest award.

As always strong Duke with Team USA coach Mike Krzyszewski at the head. Ohio State also has its own trump card, and even what. Ivan Turner is a basketball player with an amazing understanding of the game, playing at the position of shooting guard or small forward, he skillfully conducts the game of his team. To this we should add an amazing culture of handling the ball, leadership qualities, high performance and the ability to take responsibility in the most crucial seconds.

The list of contenders for the championship is not limited to only five clubs, anyone can shoot at the March Madness, any middle peasant, whether it be Vilanova or Michigan State, Purdue or New Mexico, everyone has their own chance.

Learn more

• 
  How to do amazing basketball tricks
• 
  How do you play fantasy basketball espn
• 
  How to build the best fantasy basketball team
• 
  How to box out in basketball
• 
  How long is a school basketball game
• 
  How to gain basketball iq
• 
  How many division 1 teams in college basketball
• 
  How to be good at basketball for beginners
• 
  How to register for uf basketball tickets
• 
  How to dunk a basketball workout
• 
  How long the basketball game