March Madness approaches, and you know what that means!
Unless, like me, you don’t follow college basketball. In that case, every year around this time, your friends, spouse, partner, children, parents or coworkers start to huddle together, pass around sheets of paper (and, occasionally, wads of cash) and talk in what seems to be code. They may even ask you if you want in, while grinning to each other.
I understand the general idea, of course, just from social osmosis: All the college basketball teams play each other until one wins, everyone has their life choices either validated or invalidated, and the wrong person in your office pool gets the money.
But why do basketball fans care so much about seeds? What are bubbles? Cinderellas? What are bracket busters and should you spray for them? Let’s find out together.
Every March, 68 college basketball teams compete to win the NCAA Division I championship in men’s and women’s basketball, by playing each other in a seven-round, single-elimination tournament — all in a very crammed period of just a few weeks. (That’s the “madness” part.)
March Madness truly kicks off when the NCAA’s Selection Committee announces which teams will be playing and what the tournament bracket will look like, with a big, televised event. This event, called Selection Sunday, is on March 16 this year at 6 p.m. EDT.
(Yes, every single element of March Madness has its own highly-marketable name. Accept it. Embrace it.)
There are two types of teams that will compete in the NCAA tournament in 2025:
NCAA Division I (or D-I) is the highest level of intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Association in the United States. These are generally the big schools even we non-sports people have heard of. They are all grouped into “conferences,” which are groups of teams sometimes based on geographical locations, with names like “Missouri Valley,” “Pac-12,” Patriot League,” Sun Belt,” etc., because there are a lot of teams and this makes things a bit more manageable.
The University of Florida Gators are in the Southeastern Conference, for example. Florida State University is in the Atlantic Coast Conference.
The 68 teams are split into four regions (also called regionals) for the tournament. In the men’s tournament, it’s the East, South, Midwest, and West. The women’s tournament’s regions are usually named for the cities the final games are played at, but this year both final games will be played back to back at Amalie Arena in Tampa.
The teams are also assigned seeds.
Every one of the 68 teams gets assigned a numerical ranking from 1-16, called a “seed,” that will determine where each one will be placed in the region. If your team is the No. 16 seed, it just means they’re ranked No. 16 in their region.
In the bracket, the highest-ranked (or seeded) team will face the lowest-seeded team.
Why not just call it ranking? I don’t know. It’s a sports thing.
There are two answers, here. The official bracket is the schedule, usually presented as a tree diagram that shows you which teams are playing which other teams, in what order, during a single-elimination tournament. Two teams play, the winner goes on to the next round in the bracket, and so on. This bracket is established by the NCAA.
A “bracket” also refers to the paper your buddies or coworkers at the office might be passing around, where everyone in the group hands in their best guesses for the winners for each round, all the way up to the final winner, often betting on which one of their group comes the closest.
Betters make their choices carefully, based on obsessive, in-depth knowledge of the teams and their rosters, careful observation of the coaches and the team play so far this season, knowledge of player injuries, personal lifelong team loyalties from childhood that disregard all history and logic, or even, for all I know, by favorite mascots.
There isn’t much about March Madness that people don’t bet on.
Your friendly office pool most likely just bets on the final winner, but people bet on who gets at-large bids, what seeds individual teams get, each and every game and multiple elements within each game and even specific player performances.
When you’re doing a massive single-elimination tournament, 68 is a lousy number to manage.
To get that down to a nice, easily-divisible number (and to get the excitement building for the fans), the four lowest-seeded automatic qualifiers (the teams that won their conferences already) and the four lowest-seeded at-large teams (out of the teams that didn’t win, but got invited to play) play in a round called “The First Four” and the winners move on, leaving us a nicely-divisible 64 teams.
The First Four men’s games are on Tuesday, March 18, and Wednesday, March 19.
I did warn you. They like catchy names.
After the First Four round, there are three weeks of practically nonstop basketball ahead. The first round abruptly reduces the 64 teams to 32 teams and the games over the next week leave you with 16 teams, which are called the “Sweet 16.” Over a weekend, those get whittled down to the “Elite Eight.” I think you can see where this is going.
During the last weekend, the “Final Four” — one winner from each region — compete for the national championship.
That’s the general idea of March Madness, aside from the never-ending drama, the epic wins, tragic losses, buzzer-beater, game-winning shots, heart-rending injuries, the heroic underdogs and the screaming emotional rollercoasters that will completely occupy the lives of your friends, family and coworkers for most of the month.
Whichever team manages to win all six of its games, over three weekends.
A bracket buster is a team you picked to make it to the Final Four that, maddeningly, lost inside of the first round or two and caused you to say words out loud that your children shouldn’t be learning yet. And yes, you will be mocked for it. Taunting your buddies and mocking their choices, to some, is the most essential part of March Madness.
A bracket buster also can refer to a team that unexpectedly defeats the team that everyone thought was going to win, which then busts everyone’s bracket. See: Cinderella, below.
Bubble teams occur before March Madness, during the selection process for the at-large bids. Those are the teams that may or may not get selected. These are the sorts of things that basketball fans and sports journalists all obsess over, along with all the other things.
If a team does much better than anyone expected them to, especially if they’re a low-seeded team, they’re considered a Cinderella. Some fans insist it has to be a first-round upset to be a Cinderella. If there is a Cinderella, it’s quite likely they’re the reason your bracket got busted.
That depends on which fan you ask, and how much time you have. Many die-hard basketball fans have deep-seated emotional scars over their team getting passed over for an at-large bid, even though they had an amazing season that only missed winning by one bad call in favor of a loser team that doesn’t deserve to be on a court, much less playing in the madness.
Just have an exit strategy planned before you ask.
Well, now it’s an official brand of the NCAA.
But originally, it came from an essay by Henry V. Porter, assistant executive secretary of the Illinois High School Association, in the 1930s. He was so impressed with the tournament he dubbed it March Madness, and other sportswriters and sports columnists, who knew a good alliteration when they heard it, ran with it.
The teams that will be competing will be announced on Selection Sunday, March 16.
For men’s teams:
For women’s teams:
Selection Sunday will be broadcast on March 16.
Men’s basketball:
Women’s basketball:
All the games will be streamed on NCAA’s March Madness Live, but you have to sign in to your TV provider to be able to access the games. March Madness live also includes extra content.
The men’s tournament games will be broadcast on CBS, TBS, TNT and truTV — here is a schedule that will be updated with matchups — or you can watch them on any online service that offers them as part of their packages, such as Max, Paramount+ and FuboTV.
If you’re using an antenna on your TV, many of the games will be broadcast on CBS affiliates.
The women’s tournament will air on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN News, ESPNU and occasionally ABC on this schedule. The women’s Final Four will air on ESPN. ESPN cable subscribers will be able to stream the games, as can ESPN+ digital subscribers.
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