Are you a sports fan? No matter what sport you enjoy, college basketball has to be the best out of them all. However, if you are a basketball fanatic, in particular, this is a special time of year. It’s a time when everywhere you turn, people are talking about their brackets, bubble teams, and buzzer-beaters.
March Madness refers to that time of year (usually mid-March through April) when the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) men’s and women’s basketball teams compete in the biggest tournament in college sports.
The twerk madness captures the excitement that goes around in the sports world and fans as tournament time approaches. In the weeks leading up to the “Big Dance,” as it is called, hundreds of college basketball teams from all over the United States fight to earn a spot in the tournament.
The first men’s tournament was held in 1939, but it was overshadowed for most of the two decades it ran. The NCAA tournament has been gradually beginning to draw more and more attention bringing nationally and internationally. Television stations and other broadcast companies help the NCAA generate massive amounts of revenue. By the time UCLA began its record run of winning seven straight national basketball championships in 1967, the tournament itself was very well established and well-known by many.
The size of the tournament field increased incredibly, going from 8 teams in 1939 to 64 teams in 1985. A 65th team and corresponding “Play in-game” was added in 2001. In 2011, the NCAA added three additional opening-round games to the tournament, bringing the field to 68 teams. The first women’s tournament was a 32-team event held in 1982, and it expanded to 64 in 1994 and 68 in 2022.
The men’s tournament format is made up of four separate regions, each of which contains 16 teams that are seeded from 1-16 based on how they performed during the regular season. The number 1 seed plays 16, 2 plays 15, 3 plays 14, and so on.
The sizable field often produces pairings of large schools from well-known conferences like the Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, and SEC. When large schools match up with small schools in early rounds, everyone is watching for upsets, which can lead to underdog teams advancing into the later rounds of the tournament. We call the smaller named teams that make their mark in the tournament Cinderella teams. 2018 was the first time that a number 16 seed beat a number 1 seed.
Fans use a bracket to have some fun and try to predict the winners and losers of each game. Though through the years, there has never been ANYONE who has made a perfect bracket; it is nearly impossible, and that is part of the fun.
