When March comes around, most people see the weather getting warmer and the days getting longer. However, many also associate March with the month-long NCAA basketball tournament- March Madness. March Madness is a 68 team single elimination bracket filled with the top college basketball teams in the country. There are 32 automatic bids to the tournament for winning their respective conferences. The other 36 teams are considered “At Large Bids” and are decided based on certain criteria such as Strength of Record, Wins Against Top 25, and various other stats and rankings. The bracket is split into six different rounds- Round of 64, Round of 32, Sweet Sixteen, Elite Eight, Final Four, and the National Championship where the ultimate champion is crowned.

March Madness was started in 1939 and has been held every year since. The inaugural tournament only had eight teams where Oregon won the first championship. Ever since 1939, the number of teams gradually increased to the 64 teams we know today. As more conferences have been added to Division I Athletics, more rounds have been added, and in 2011 the NCAA introduced a round before the main tournament called the “First Four”. As the current state of college conference changes, it’ll be interesting to see how this affects the tournament in the near future.

The term March Madness was introduced into the world until the 1982 tournament. Henry Porter, who was an Illinois High School official, came up with the term during the Illinois High School Basketball tournament. Brent Musburger used the term “March Madness” during the 1982 season and it has taken off and grew as the identity of the NCAA Basketball tournament.

Nobody knows for certain when March Madness bracket competitions officially started, but historians have pointed to a Staten Island Bar in 1977 where 88 people went up against each other’s brackets. Since then it has grown to tens of millions of people competing against one another on various apps to all have the same goal- a perfect bracket. Nobody has ever filled out a perfect bracket, and the odds that someone will are extremely small. Experts have done the math and have given the odds to be 1 in 9 quintillion. You are more likely to win the lottery than fill out a perfect bracket.

“March Madness is always the highlight of my March, and watching the games during the school day is always a fun time,” Junior Sammy Pearson said.

This year’s bracket starts on March 17th after the selection committee makes their announcement. Will you finally break the streak and become the first bracket in history, or will you go down with most Americans and end with a busted bracket at the end of the month. Good luck!