Millions of people across the United States are filling out March Madness brackets this week, as part of one of the most anticipated annual traditions in American sports.
According to the NCAA, the odds of filling out a perfect bracket, which means correctly predicting all 67 games from the six-round slate plus the First Four play-in games, are about one in 120 billion.
What is March Madness?
Here is some background on the tournament and how it is put together each year. The 2024 NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament is a single-elimination event with 68 teams.
The 2024 NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament is a single-elimination event with 68 teams.
Thirty-two of the 68 teams in this season’s tournament received automatic bids by winning each of the 32 postseason conference tournaments held in the week preceding March Madness. These tournaments were also single-elimination events.
The remaining 36 teams received at-large bids. As they do every season, on Selection Sunday, which this year was March 17, a 10-member Selection Committee comprised of various conference administrators and commissioners met to vote on which schools would be invited.
The selection process takes into account a number of factors, including a team’s strength of schedule during the regular season, the quality of its wins (such as whether they came on the road or at home), and how the team performed statistically, both offensively and defensively.
It’s all part of a complex model known as the NCAA Evaluation Tool, or NET rankings, which the committee has used since the 2018-19 season.
Going into Selection Sunday, so-called “bracketologists” will list some potential at-large teams as “on the bubble,” which means it’s unclear whether the committee will include them in the 68-team field.
The major conferences, known as the Power Five conferences — the Big Ten, the Southeastern Conference, the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Big 12, and the soon-to-be-defunct Pac-12 — receive the most at-large bids. This year, for example, the SEC and Big-12 each have eight schools in March Madness, followed by the Big Ten and Mountain West, both with six.
All about March Madness brackets?
After narrowing down the 68-team field, the Selection Committee seeds them from 1 to 68.
The First Four, which takes place before the tournament’s first round, pits the four lowest-seeded conference winners against the four lowest-seeded at-large teams in a single-elimination play-in. Four teams are eliminated, and the First Four winners advance to the first round.
The 64-team first-round field is divided into four regional brackets: South, Midwest, East, and West. Within each region, teams are seeded from one to sixteen.
This year’s No. 1 seeds are Connecticut, North Carolina, Purdue, and Houston.
In NCAA history, only two times has a 16-seed defeated a No. 1 seed. In 2018, the University of Maryland, Baltimore County stunned the basketball world by soundly defeating No. 1 seeded Virginia. Last year, No. 16 Fairleigh-Dickinson edged out top-seeded Purdue.
Furthermore, only two First Four teams have ever advanced to the Final Four: Virginia Commonwealth University in 2011 and UCLA in 2021, according to CBS Sports.
March Madness lasts approximately three weeks
Following the First Four, the NCAA Tournament has six rounds: the first and second rounds, the Sweet 16, the Elite Eight, the Final Four, and the championship game.
The First Four will be held on March 19-20 in Dayton, Ohio.
The first round began on March 21 and the second round on March 23. The first and second rounds will be played in eight cities: Brooklyn, Charlotte, Indianapolis, Omaha, Pittsburgh, Salt Lake City, Spokane, and Memphis.
Boston, Dallas, Detroit, and Los Angeles will host the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight from March 28 to 31.
The Final Four and the title game will take place at State Farm Stadium in Glendale, home of the NFL’s Arizona Cardinals, on Saturday, April 6, and Monday, April 8.
March Madness lasts approximately three weeks, beginning with the First Four on Tuesday, March 19 and concluding with the title game on Monday, April 8.
North Carolina has made the most Final Four appearances in history
The first men’s tournament, won by the University of Oregon, was held in 1939 with only eight teams, according to NCAA.com. The tournament grew to 16 teams in 1951, 32 in 1975, and 64 in 1985.
A 65th team was added in 2001 to accommodate the Mountain West Conference, and three more teams were added in 2011 to form the First Four.
According to Statista, North Carolina has made the most Final Four appearances in history with 21, followed by UCLA with 18 and Kentucky with 17.
According to NCAA.com, UCLA has the most championships of any team, with 11, followed by Kentucky with eight and North Carolina with six. Ten of UCLA’s 11 titles were won under the late John Wooden, who is widely regarded as the greatest college coach of all time.