Your NCAA Tournament Guide

As the sun slowly melts the snow away, I gently prod aside my studies for a greater love: the NCAA tournament. The men’s division I basketball tournament, also known as March Madness (taking place predominately in March), is a 65 team tournament held each spring. This 3-week tournament, which began in 1939, takes place at sites across the United States working its way to the national semifinals. This publicly acclaimed sporting event has grown to be bigger and more anticipated every year.

Several circumstances such as team rankings, RPI (ratings percentage index), and wins and losses determine whether a team goes to the tournament and what they may be seeded. Teams who win their conference tournament (held after the regular season) receive automatic bids to the tournament. The Ivy League is an exception because they don’t hold a conference tournament. Instead, the regular season champion receives the automatic bid. If a team fails to win their conference tournament, they hope that their regular season resume is good enough to receive an at-large bid. Winning your conference tournament grants a team a right to the tournament, whereas an at-large bid offers a team an invitation.

Out of the 65-team bracket, 31 of the teams receive automatic births, while the remaining 34 teams are given at-large bids. At-large bids aren’t considered lesser teams than the conference winners; they just failed to play well enough during a specific period of time. The selection committee that determines what teams go and what teams are left evaluate a team and how they played throughout the entire season. The six BCS conferences (Pac-10, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, ACC, SEC) are known to get many of the at-large births. Most marquee schools like UCLA, UConn, and UNC don’t win their conference tournaments, but are still highly considered in being selected.

There is often much controversy concerning what teams are most deserving of going to the Big Dance (another name for the NCAA tournament). This makes the selection process a grueling one because there are often more teams deserving than are allowed to go. The brackets are revealed and are nationally televised on Selection Sunday, aired on CBS the Sunday before the tournament (the tournament begins on a Thursday). The bracket consists of four regions, each holding 16 seeds. If you happen to fill out a bracket, here are some facts to consider: no 16 seed has beaten a one seed, there has never been a case where all four number one seeds made the semi-finals (final four), and since the tournament’s existence, there have been only two years (1980 and 2006) in which a number one seed failed to make the final four.

For many, this event is more than just a tournament; it’s a tradition. It’s the essence in failing grades for all teenage basketball crazed boys in March. It’s where you’ll hear me ask the question, “Hey, can I get your economics notes?”