March Madness is a phenomenon that spellbind the internal sports psyche from the second calendar week of March through the first week of April . March Madness is the moniker that is given to theNational Collegiate Athletic Association(NCAA ) Men ’s and Women ’s Basketball tournament . These tournament determine the national virtuoso of collegebasketball .
The Man ’s and women ’s NCAA basketball game tournament are beloved American play traditions that ship jillion of college basketball game fans into a synchronized frenzy each yr . These are unmarried - voiding tournaments , which means that the championship team has to deliver the goods at least six game in a row to claim the form of address . One loss and you ’re croak home .
It ’s this in high spirits - stake environs — plus the chance to find a demented " Cinderella - story " confused — that gives the tourney its March Madness byname . March Madness is the saturated ballyhoo of 68 man ’s teams and 64 women ’s team vying for college basketball game ’s biggest plunder . It ’s the last - second , buzzer - vex baskets , the euphoria of winning to play another 24-hour interval or the agony of your season follow to an oddment .
In this article , we ’ll break down the brackets of the NCAA Basketball Tournament and see at how squad are selected , how they are seeded and how the champions of college basketball game are specify .
College Athletics 101
A single governing body , known as the National Collegiate Athletic Association ( NCAA ) , is charged with overseeing the 1,098 voluntary college and university members that comprise the connection . congressman from the extremity school day help draft the formula of NCAA competition , and a national NCAA office engage all championships , including March Madness [ source : NCAA ] .
The NCAA appendage school are divided into three naval division depending on sure gene like school size of it , athletic budget and overall competitiveness . In addition , each air division has its own rules for appendage school [ source : NCAA ] :
Division I : These schools must patronize at least seven sports each for gentleman’s gentleman and women , or six for men and eight for woman , with two team sports for each grammatical gender . Men ’s and women’sbasketballteams must act all but two of their game against Division I team , and valet de chambre must dally a third of their contests in their designated abode arena . Schools have a lower limit and maximum number of scholarships they can present . Of the three divisions , Division I is the most prominent and receives the most publicity . The schools in Division I run to the tumid ones and with the declamatory acrobatic budgets , often because of lucrative mass medium contract bridge . Some 350 schools are in Division I , include Duke , UCLA and the University of Kentucky .
Division II : These school must patronize at least five summercater each for men and adult female ( or four for work force and six for woman ) , with at least two team sports for each gender . serviceman and women ’s basketball teams must play at least half of their game against Division I or Division II school . There are no minimum home base plot requirements for this division . Most of the 310 schools in Division II have enrollments of less than 8,000 students , like Lynn University in Florida . Student - jock commonly get partial gymnastic scholarships . There is an emphasis on regional competition to concentrate missed family time .
Division III : These school must frequent at least five mutant each for men and cleaning lady , with two team sports for each grammatical gender . Unlike Divisions I and II , Division III schools do not extend acrobatic scholarships . Division III is actually the largest sectionalization of the NCAA , with more than 438 schools participating . play seasons are brusque to allow for more time for academics . Universities such as Johns Hopkins and Emory are in Division III .
Since the Division I Men ’s and Women ’s Basketball tournament are the most outstanding , and the data formatting for all of the tournament is the same , the eternal sleep of this clause focus on the Division I tournament .
The Source of March Madness
Today , the term March Madness is synonymous with the NCAA Basketball Tournament , but the nickname was first used to describe another basketball tourney — the annual Illinois High School Association tournament . bus and educator Henry V. Porter is credit with coin the musical phrase in a 1939 essay for the Illinois Interscholastic magazine , titled " March Madness " [ informant : IHSA ] .
Describing a typically " afflicted " hoops fan , Porter wrote :
The sobriquet March Madness was blame up by Illinois sports writer , who embraced the Modern moniker throughout the " Golden eld " of the Illinois high-pitched school basketball tournament in the 1940s and fifties [ source : IHSA ] .
March Madness was not used to describe the NCAA Tournament until 1982 , when Brent Musburger , a CBS reporter , used the term during the telecast of a tournament game . Musburger said he got the name from a Chicago auto dealer who did announcements for the local high school tournament [ reference : Heck ] . College basketball fan and the medium have been using the term ever since .
Today , after a court of law battle over the possession of the term , March Madness is co - owned by the NCAA and IHSA through the March Madness Athletic Association .
Tickets to the Big Dance
In 2022 - 23 , there were 350 men ’s team and 348 woman ’s teams in Division I college basketball game ( two military colleges only have men ’s teams ) and each squad begins every basketball time of year with one aspiration — come through the internal title . But before these teams can win the tourney , they must make the field of squad that are invite to the tournament . Only 68 men ’s teams and 64 cleaning woman ’s teams are granted invitation to what ’s often send for the Big Dance .
Aselection committeethat comprise different university athletic manager and conference commissioners chooses squad for both the man ’s and women ’s tournaments . Each tournament has its own committee . The option citizens committee meets between the Thursday and Sunday before the day of the month foot for the tournament ’s first game . Its job is to figure out the team deserving of an invitation . The conclusion are announced ontelevisionduringSelection Sunday .
Thirty - two teams invite an automatic invite to the tourney , which is their payoff for winning their several postseason conference tournaments . The remaining invite , 36 for human beings and 32 for woman , are get out in the work force of the extract citizens committee . Of the team left in the consortium , certain team are assured a dapple in the tournament , others do n’t make the excision , and then there ’s a third chemical group , calledbubbleteams , that could go either way .
How March Madness Teams are Picked
The 10 - appendage men ’s and women ’s selection commission are sequestered in a hotel during the selection process , not unlike a panel for an important homage case . Members must weigh the grounds provided to them though certain criteria . During the excerption process , each appendage must submit a list of squad that should , without a doubt , be in the tournament . This lean can not admit the schooltime that the fellow member represents . If eight appendage put a team on their list , that squad is put into the field of tournament team .
Here are some of the criteria the survival committees rely on :
supercede the Rating Percentage Index ( RPI ) is the NCAA Evaluation Tool , or NET , where the committee takes into account secret plan results , the strength of a team ’s docket , game fix , scoring margin , and net offensive and defensive efficiency . The grading margin is capped at 10 point to keep unsportsmanlike gambol , such as running up the score in a game which is already lopsided [ sources : NCAA , NCAA ] .
The Women ’s Basketball Committee still uses the RPI . The RPI is reckon as 25 percentage of a squad ’s winning percentage plus 50 percent of its opponents ' modal winning percentage plus 25 percentage of the adversary ' opponents ' average succeed percentage . A team’swinning percentageis determined by dividing a squad ’s wins by the number of games it has spiel [ source : RPIratings.com ] .
For those squad that are n’t invited , there is no appeals physical process . The citizens committee ’s decisions are final . The only conciliation for these teams is the possibility of playing in the National Invitation Tournament ( NIT ) , which take in another 32 teams for postseason sport . The Women ’s NIT — which is not run by the NCAA — tempt 64 team [ source : Women ’s NIT ] .
Now that you ’ve learned how teams are selected , rent ’s go to the next section and look at how teams are seeded by the committee .
NCAA Basketball Tournament ‘Pods’ and ‘Seeds’
Talking about the NCAA Tournament can sometimes sound like a conversation about horticulture . Like garden , the tourney includes pods and seeds . Seedsrefer to the placement of a squad in one of four neighborhood , andpodsrefer to the method of grouping seeds at particular first - troll and second - round tourney site . The same citizens committee that take teams for the tournament also decides how teams are seed and where they trifle .
As we teach earlier , the field of operations of teams is divided into four geographic regions . Each part has between 16 and 18 teams , which are assigned a seed number of one through 18 , with the best team in the region present the No . 1 seed .
Traditionally , the highest seeds ( Nos . 1 through 8) have revel more succeeder than the lower seeds ( Nos . 9 through 16 ) . The lower seeds symbolize potentialCinderellasof the tournament . A Cinderella team is one that unexpectedly achieves success in the tournament . Traditionally , Cinderella ’s chariot turns back into a autumn pumpkin before have to the Final Four .
On the other hand , four lawful Cinderellas have made the men ’s Final Four in recent years : Virginia Commonwealth University ( VCU ) ( No . 11 in 2011 ) , Wichita State ( No . 9 in 2013 ) , Syracuse ( No . 10 in 2016 ) , and Loyola Chicago ( No . 11 in 2018 ) . And two other borderline Cinderellas — No . 8 Butler in 2011 and No . 7 South Carolina in 2017 — also made surprise appearances in the Final Four [ rootage : Norlander ] .
Where March Madness Games Are Played
After the committee assigns seed , it place the top four squad in each region to a first / second circle situation that is most geographically compatible to those squad , no matter of where the team might diddle in subsequent rounds . For example , a squad from an Eastern state that is seeded secondly in the West neighborhood might play its first- and 2d - round games at a site in the easterly part of the country and then represent in the West Regional . ARegionalis a tournament within a tournament . The four champions from each area comprise the Final Four .
There are eight sites for the first / 2d round . team are placed at these sites in group of four , which make up a pod , and there are two pods at each site . For each region , there are four pods [ source : NCAA ] .
Each week , squad play at a different internet site . The Final Four is toy at a newfangled venue each year , but it ’s usually played in a major metropolitan expanse .
While it sounds complicated , the NCAA tourney is in reality pretty simple . The tourney keep subtracting teams until there is only one . That squad is the champion of college basketball .
March Madness Tournament Play
The NCAA Basketball Tournament is played over a menstruation of three weeks , commonly begin on the third Thursday in March . In the man ’s tourney , play starting line with the " First Four , " the four lowest - seed teams fighting for a spot in the top 64 . Then the real tourney start . In the women ’s tournament , there are no special teams , so there is no " open up round . "
Over the first two full day of the tourney , the line of business of 64 teams is pare down to 32 . In the next two days , the field is dress to 16 , or theSweet 16 , as it is often call . These final 16 teams take a four - twenty-four hour period break before resuming play on the next Thursday . During the 2d week of the tourney , the subject is cut back from 16 to 8 ( theElite Eight ) and then to four . Those teams comprise the tournament’sFinal Four .
In the third and final calendar week of the tournament , the team that live the mayhem of March and make it to the Final Four battle it out in April for the cap of college hoops .
During March Madness , many fan sate out bracket contour to essay and guess the order of the 64 teams , all the way to the winner . Sometimes , there ’s some money on the line . In 2023 , employment firmChallenger , Grey and Christmas estimatedthat office workers lost $ 17.3 billion in productiveness consider into report the fourth dimension lost while proletarian filled out their brackets . Officially , the NCAA supports bracket contests as long as there ’s no entry fee to participate . Which sort of defeats the intention .
For printable versions of the NCAA Basketball Tournament brackets , including dates and locations , visitNCAAsports.com .
The Final Four
Many sport use a tournament format to decide their champion , including professional sports . The Final Four of college basketball refer to thesemifinal roundof the Division I Men ’s or Women ’s Basketball tourney . In this stave , there are four squad left , and two game are play to determine which two team will head to the finals .
The words " concluding Four " relate only to college basketball . In fact , if you watch out college basketball you will frequently get word the terminus , specially from CBS , which uses the phrase " Road to the Final Four " in its reporting . CBS has been the major TV pardner for the NCAA since 1982 , but Turner Sports has had a joint contract as well since 2010 .
Making it to the Final Four think that a squad won its first four tournament game , and it only has to win two more to be the internal champions . A squad that reaches this point in the tournament is already envisioning the suspension of a national title banner from the raftman of its home arena , which is a common tradition .
As mentioned before , the Final Four games are play in April , but they are still full of the March Madness syndrome . Typically , the men ’s semifinal games are play on the first Saturday in April , and the cleaning lady ’s are play on the first Sunday . The achiever of those games move on to front each other in their respective championship games , which are played on the subsequent Monday .
In 2022 , the NCAA announced that it had made $ 1.14 billion in revenue , $ 1 billion of which came from March Madness [ source : Parker ] . Most of this fare from TV contract . The profits go to the take part school or to the conferences via a convention that gives percentage based on squad performance , encyclopedism given out and other factor . The NCAA requests that conferences divide money equally among their member schools . Only abouta third of the schoolsmake money off or break even with their basketball programs , so any conference money meet helps to overcompensate team expenses . Smaller conferences are more likely to keep a large portion of NCAA money to comprehend their own expenses .
We should add that a 2021 formula variety does allow NCAAA athletes to make money off their names and images ( for instance , from appearing in a TV commercial ) though they ca n’t be pay a remuneration for playing while in schooltime
[ germ : Parker ] .
