So your sports-fan friends, family and coworkers have gone a little crazy the last few weeks, calling, texting or intently huddling around each other, wearing more basketball jerseys than usual,passing around sheets of paper (and, occasionally, wads of cash)and asking you if you want in.
It's March Madness again!And you know what that means!
Well, no, probably not, if (like me) you don't follow college basketball and don't have a sports-minded life partner. Iunderstandthe 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 fans talk passionately about seeds? What are bubbles? Cinderellas? Should you fear the bracket buster? Let's find out together.
What is March Madness, anyway?
March is the magical time every year when 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 single-elimination tournament over just a few weeks. (That's the "madness" part.)
Here we go:College basketball conference tournament schedules, scores as March Madness gets kicked off
NCAA Selection Sunday information:When do March Madness brackets come out?
2023 NCAA Tournament automatic bids:Who has secured spots in March Madness?
How do they decide who plays in March Madness?
All the NCAA Division teams playin one of 32 different conferences—
Sorry, went too fast. NCAA Division I (or D-I) is the highest level of intercollegiate athletics sanctioned by the National Collegiate Athletic Associationin the United States. These are generally the schools even we non-sports people have heard of. They have "conferences," which are groups of teams based on geographical location 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 Gators are in the Southeastern Conference, for example. FSU is in the Atlantic Coast.
All of these conferences playtheirown tournamentsto kick off March Madness and the winners of those tournaments automatically getto competein the for the . They're pre-qualified, so to speak, and are said to have gotten "automatic bids."But that's only 32 teams.
The other 36 teams are the ones that didn't win their conference tournaments but impressed the NCAA selection committee enough to get offered invitations, or "at-large berths," to play anyway. The names of those teams get announced in a big, televised event called "Selection Sunday."
(Yes, every single element of March Madness has its own highly-marketable name. Accept it. Embrace it.)
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 named for the cities the final game is played in; this year it's Bridgeport, Conn.; Greensboro, N.C.; Wichita, Kan.;and Spokane, Wash.Easy so far.
More:March Madness a bedrock in ever-changing college landscape
Bubble Watch winners and losers:Enjoy the NIT, UNC
What are NET rankings, quadrant wins?Explaining college basketball evaluation tools
What is a March Madness bracket?
There are two answers, here. The official bracket is the schedule usually presented as a tree diagramthatshows you which teams are playing which other teams, in what order, during asingle-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 your coworkers at the office are 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, and they often bet on which one of their groupcomes 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.
What do people bet on duringMarch Madness?
I'm not sure there's anything involved, start to finish, 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 elements in the games, whatever.
But that's beyond the range of this article, since while I was researching I ran intopoint spreads, over/unders, foreign foes, moneylines, derivatives, futures, and First to 15 props, and I had to go lie down.
Winning the pool:Keys to winning USA TODAY Sports' March Madness survivor pools: Step 1 is to enter
But what is a March Madness 'seed'?
Every one of the 68 teams gets assigned a numericalrankingfrom 1-16, called a "seed,"that will determine where each one will be placed in the region. If your team is the No.16seed, it just means they're ranked No. 16in their region. Sorry.
In the bracket, the highest-ranked (or seeded) team will face the lowest-seededteam.
Why not just callit ranking? I do not know. It's a sports thing.
What is the 'First Four'?
Turns out that 68 isn't a great number to figure out a massive single-elimination tournament with.
To get them down to a nice easily-divisible number, and to get the excitement building for the fans, the fourlowest-seeded automatic qualifiers (remember? 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.
What are the 'Sweet Sixteen,'the 'Elite Eight,'and the 'Final Four'?
I did warn you they like names. After the First Four round, you've got three weeksof practically nonstop basketball ahead. After the first round when 64 teams abruptly become 32 teams, the games over the next week leave you with sixteen teams, the "Sweet 16." That weekend, they get whittled down to the "Elite 8." I think you can see where this is going.
Duringthe last weekend, the "Final Four"— one winner from each region — compete for the national championship.
Naming the games:Who came up with the March Madness names Sweet 16, Elite 8 and Final Four?
That's the general idea of March Madness, aside fromthe never-ending drama and the epic wins and tragic losses and buzzer-beater, game-winning shots and heart-rending injuries and the heroic underdogs and the screaming emotional rollercoasters that will completely occupy the lives of your friends, family and coworkers most of the month.
Who wins March Madness?
Whichever team manages to win all six of its games, over three weekends.
What are bracket busters? What are bubbles? What is a March Madness Cinderella?
Ah, yes, I did promise those.
A bracket buster is ateam you picked to make it to the Final Four that, maddeningly, lost inside of the first round or twoand caused you to say words out loud that HR would like to talk to you about. And yes, you will be mocked for it. Taunting your buddies and mocking their pathetic choices is an essential part of March Madness.
A bracket buster also can referto a team that unexpectedly defeatsthe team that everyone thought was going to win and thereby busted everyone's bracket.
Bubble teams occur before March Madness, during the selection process for the at-large bids. Those are the teams that may or may notget selected, but no one really knows. These are the sorts of things that basketball fans and sports journalists all obsess on, along with all the other things.
If a team does way 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.
Are at-large bids the best teams that didn't win their conference tournaments?
Depends on which fan you ask. Every die-hard basketball fan has 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 ONEBAD CALL in favor of a LOSER team that doesn't DESERVE to BEon a FREAKIN' COURT, much less playing in the MADNESS.
Just have an exit strategy planned beforeyou ask, is all I'm saying.
Where did the name 'March Madness' come from?
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.
When does March Madness 2023 begin?
The teams that will be competing will be announced on March 12 (Selection Sunday).
For men's teams, the first games will begin on March 14 and the championship game will be Apr. 3, according to the NCAA schedule.
For women's teams. the first games will begin on March 15 and the championship game will be Apr. 2, according to the NCAA schedule.
The bracketswill be announced after the seeds are determined.
How canI watch March Madness online?
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.
The men's tournament games will be broadcast on CBS,TBS, TNT andtruTV, or you can watch them on any online service that offers them as part of their packages, such as Hulu Live TV, SlingTV, DirecTV Stream, 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, and ESPNU. The women's Final Four will air on ESPN. ESPN cable subscribers will be able to stream the games, as can ESPN+ digital subscribers.
Now go! Enjoy! And someone please fill out a bracket based on favorite mascots and tell me how you did.
C. A. Bridges is a Digital Producer for the USA TODAY Network, working with multiplenewsrooms across Florida. Local journalists work hard to keep you informed about the things you care about, and you can support them by subscribing to yourlocal news organization.Read more articles by Chris here and follow him on Twitter at @cabridges
