College Basketball Overview

The NCAA Basketball Tournament is a yearly held basketball competition in the United States among select Division I collegiate teams to decide the national champion. Popularly known as “March Madness” or “The Big Dance”, the inaugural tournament started in 1939 featuring eight (8) teams divided in two regional brackets. Oregon was the first NCAA champion after defeating Villanova in the national finals game, 53-36. Today, the NCAA basketball tournament has 68 participating teams. Of the 68, 31 are conference champions from the NCAA’s 31 conferences. These conference winners are granted automatic bids into the tournament. The other 37 teams are invited through at-large bids granted by the NCAA.

After the selection process, the tournament is divided into four regions, which is made-up of at least 16 teams. The top four-seeded teams are distributed to each region and become that region’s number one ranked team. Playing a single-elimination format, the chances of lower-seeded teams advancing in the tournament is higher thus upsets have been a normal fixture in the NCAA basketball tournament.

The competition begins in the First Four round, followed by the Round of 64 and Round of 32. Then, the 16 remaining teams play in the Regional Semifinals or the Sweet Sixteen; followed by the Regional Finals (Elite Eight) and the Final Four. The two teams that win the Final Four games then play in the NCAA Basketball Tournament National Final.