March Madness

March Madness

The Maddest Time of the Year March Madness--the name says it all. In March 1939, this college basketball tournament began with just eight teams. Over the years, the tournament has grown, but it still sweeps across the country every March, and it's still crazy. In fact, with 68 teams playing in a single-elimination tournament, anything can happen.

Now or Never The National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) runs college sports in the United States. Since 1939, the NCAA March Madness tournament has included some of the greatest basketball talents of all time. Many professional athletes perfect their skills in college. So it is no surprise that the path to professional basketball goes straight through the March Madness tournament. The National Basketball Association (NBA) includes many past March Madness players. NBA stars Shaquille O'Neal, Magic Johnson, Larry Bird, Stephen Curry, and many others first showed their stuff in the NCAA men's tournament.

Yet for most players, college is the final stop in their basketball career. For them, the chance for basketball glory is now or never. NCAA athletes are full-time students who do not get paid. They play for the love of the game. Players have been known to collapse onto the floor and burst into tears at the end of a game. Sometimes it's out of happiness. Sometimes it's out of sadness. Either way, their fans love them for it.

How the Madness Works The path to the March Madness championship is long and difficult. As of 2016, teams are grouped by region into 32 conferences of different sizes. All the teams want to play in the tournament, but only 68 make it each year. So how are the 68 teams chosen? The winners of each of the 32 conferences automatically qualify for the March Madness tournament. The remaining 36 teams are chosen by a ten-person committee. Its members vote on a Sunday a few days before the tournament.

The Bracket Racket March Madness has become one of the most popular sports events in the United States, even among people who aren't sports fans. In large part, this is due to the fun of filling out a bracket-a grid of all the teams in the tournament. People fill out a bracket to predict who will win each game and move on to the next round of competition. A bracket shows the path a team would have to follow to reach the championship game. Millions of people around the country fill out a bracket every year. Some like the safe bet and choose the best-ranked teams, while others love rooting for the underdogs. Almost everyone is trying to beat somebody else family and friends, coworkers, or strangers online.