Introduction to How March Madness Works
 |
The NCAA tournaments are an American tradition that sends millions of fans into a synchronized frenzy each year. It is this chaos that gives the tournament its March Madness nickname. March Madness is the concentrated hype of 65 teams vying for college basketball's biggest prize. It's the last-second, buzzer-beating baskets, the euphoria of winning to play another day, and the agony of losing and going home.
In this article, we will break down the brackets of the NCAA Basketball Tournament and look at how teams are selected, how they are seeded and how the champions of college basketball are determined.
College Basketball Basics
 Image courtesy NCAA.org Official NCAA logo |
Among the 1,200 colleges and universities that make up the NCAA, only 1,006 are considered active members. According to the NCAA:
-
an active member is a four-year college or university or a two-year, upper-level collegiate institution that has been accredited by the appropriate regional accrediting agency and duly elected to active membership under the provisions of the Association bylaws.
College Basketball Divisions
These 1,006 schools are divided into three categories and must follow rules specific to their division. Here are some of the factors that the NCAA uses to delineate between the three divisions.Division I - These schools must sponsor at least seven sports each for men and women, or six for men and eight for women, with two team sports for each gender. Men's and women's basketball teams must play all but two of their games against Division I teams, and men must play a third of their contests in their designated home arena. Schools have a minimum and maximum number of scholarships they can award. Of the three divisions, Division I is the most prominent and receives the most publicity.
Division II - These schools must sponsor at least four sports each for men and women, with two team sports for each gender. Men and women's basketball teams must play at least half of their games against Division I or Division II schools. There are no minimum home game requirements for this division.
Division III - These schools must sponsor at least five sports each for men and women, with two team sports for each gender. Unlike Divisions I and II, Division III schools do not offer athletic scholarships.
One of the NCAA's duties is to organize the annual basketball tournament for men's and women's college basketball of each division. Each tournament is based on a single-elimination format.
Since the Division I tournament is the most prominent, and the format for all of the tournaments is the same, the rest of this article focuses on the Division I tournament. In the next section, you will learn more about the tournament format.
|
March Madness was not used to describe the NCAA Basketball tournament until 1982, when Brent Musburger, a CBS reporter, used the term during the telecast of a tournament game. College basketball fans and the media have been using the term ever since. Today, after a court battle over the ownership of the term, March Madness is co-owned by the NCAA and IHSA through the March Madness Athletic Association. For more information on the history of the term March Madness, see MarchMadness.org. |
Tickets to the Dance
There are 327 teams in Division I college basketball, and each one begins every basketball season with one dream -- winning the national championship. But before these teams can win the championship, they must make the field of teams that are invited to the tournament. Sixty-five men's teams and 64 women's teams are granted invitations.Teams for both the men's and women's tournament are chosen by a selection committee, which is comprised of select university athletic directors and conference commissioners. Each tournament has its own committee. The selection committee meets between the Thursday and Sunday prior to the date selected for the tournament's first game. Its job is to filter out the teams deserving of an invitation. The decisions are announced on television during Selection Sunday.
There are 31 teams that get an automatic invite to the tournament, which is their reward for winning their respective conferences. Thirty of these teams win their tournament through conference tournaments. The Ivy League does not hold a tournament.
The remaining invites, 34 for men and 33 for women, are left in the hands of the selection committee. Of the teams left in the pool, there are certain teams that are assured a spot in the tournament, teams that don't make the cut, and then there is a third group of teams, called "bubble" teams, that could go either way.
Decision Criteria
The committee is sequestered in a hotel during the selection process, not unlike a jury for an important court case. This committee must weigh the evidence provided to them though certain criteria. During the selection process, each member must submit a list of teams that should, without a doubt, be in the tournament. This list cannot include the school that the member represents. If eight members put a team on their list, that team is put into the field of tournament teams.Here are some of the criteria used by the selection committees:
- Rating Percentage Index (RPI) (For information on RPI, go to CollegeRPI.com
- Ranking in national polls
- Conference record
- Road record
- Wins versus ranked opponents
- How a team finishes the regular season
For those teams that aren't invited, there is no appeals process. The committee's decisions are final. The only conciliation for these teams is the possibility of playing in the National Invitational Tournament (NIT), which invites another 32 teams for postseason play.
Now that you've learned how teams are selected, let's go to the next section and look at how teams are seeded by the committee.
|
The number of teams selected for the men's tournament has grown since the first tournament in 1939, when only eight teams were invited. The men's tournament, as we know it today, began in 1985 when the field expanded to 64 teams. In 2001, a sixty-fifth team was added to the field. On the women's side, the first tournament was played in 1982. There were 32 teams in that tournament. The tournament expanded to 48 in 1989 and then to 64 teams in 1994, which is where it stands today. |
Pods and Seeds
Talking about the NCAA basketball tournament can sometimes sound like a conversation about gardening. Like gardens, the tournament includes pods and seeds. Seeds refer to the placement of a team in one of four regions, and pods refer to the method of grouping seeds at particular first-round and second-round sites. The same committee that selects teams for the tournament also decides how teams are seeded and where they play.As you learned earlier, the field of 64 teams is divided into four geographical regions. Each region has teams that are assigned a seed number of 1 through 16, with the best team in the region awarded the 1 seed. One region of the men's tournament actually includes 17 teams, with the two lowest-ranked teams playing an opening-round game to gain the No. 16 seed in that region.
Traditionally, the highest seeds (1 through 8) have enjoyed more success than the lower seeds (9 through 16). The lower seeds represent potential "Cinderellas" of the tournament. A Cinderella team is a team that unexpectedly achieves success in the tournament. Traditionally, Cinderella's chariot turns back into a pumpkin before getting to the Final Four.
Matching Up Seeds
|
There are eight sites for the first/second rounds. Teams are placed at these sites in groups of four, which comprises a pod, and there are two pods at each site. For each region, there are four pods.
- One pod includes seeds 1, 16, 8, and 9.
- A second pod includes seeds 4, 13, 5, 12.
- The third pod includes seeds 2, 15, 7, 10.
- The fourth pod includes seeds 3, 14, 6, and 11.
Each week, teams play at a different site. The Final Four is played at a new venue each year, but is usually played in a major metropolitan area.
While it sounds complicated, the NCAA tournament is actually pretty simple. The tournament keeps subtracting teams until there is only one. That team is the champion of college basketball.
Tournament Play
|
|
Over the first two full days of the tournament, the field of 64 teams is pared to 32. In the next two days, the field is trimmed to 16 -- the Sweet 16, as it is often called. These final 16 teams take a four-day break before resuming play on the next Thursday. During the second week of the tournament, the field is trimmed from 16 to four. These teams comprise the tournament's Final Four.
In the third and final week of the tournament, the teams that survive the mayhem of March and make it to the Final Four battle it out in April for the crown of college basketball. In the next section, we will take a closer look at this final championship game.
The Final Four
Many sports use a tournament format to decide their champion, including professional sports. The "Final Four" of college basketball refers to the semifinal round of the Division I Men's or Women's Basketball Tournament. In this round, there are four teams left, and two games are played to determine which two teams will head to the finals.The words "Final Four" belong only to college basketball. In fact, if you watch college basketball you will frequently hear the term, especially from CBS, which uses the phrase "Road to the Final Four" in its coverage.
Making it to the Final Four means that a team won its first four tournament games, and it only has to win two more to be the national champions. A team that reaches this point in the tournament is already envisioning the hanging of a National Championship banner from the rafters of its home arena, which is a common tradition.
As mentioned before, the Final Fours are played in April, but they are still full of the March Madness syndrome. Typically, the men's semifinal games are played on the first Saturday in April, and the women's are played on the first Sunday. The winners of those games move on to face each other in their respective championship games, which are played on the subsequent Monday.
For more information on March Madness, college basketball and related topics, check out the links on the next page.
Lots More Information
Related HowStuffWorks Articles
- How Basketball Works
- How American Football Works
- How Baseball Works
- How Fencing Equipment Works
- How the Super Bowl Works
- How does the NFL's salary cap work?
- How do retractable roofs in convertible stadiums work?
More Great Links