NCAA March Madness Fast Facts
|
- March Madness (officially the Men's NCAA Division 1 Basketball
Tournament) will be comprised of 65 teams playing in a single
elimination tournament.
- Four separate regional brackets are configured when the
tournament field is announced. All games are played at neutral
sites and each regional winner makes it to the Final Four. The
regional champs meet on the final Saturday of the tourney and
them March Madness is concluded when the winners face off in
the championship game.
- The championship tournament began in 1939 and later became
known as March Madness.
- The term "March Madness" is credited with first being used by
H. V. Porter, an official of the Illinois High School Assoc, who
wrote an essay called March Madness in 1939. By the 1980s,
the term became associated with the NCAA Basketball tourney.
- The tournament initially began with just eight teams and
emerged to 40 in 1979. By 1985 the March Madness field was
expanded to 64 teams and then in 2001, a play-in game
increased the field to its current 65 teams.
- "Cutting down the nets." This popular March Madness tradition
takes place at the end of the regional championships and then
the national championship game.
- Office pools sweep the nation each year as fans young and old
make their March Madness selections.
|
|
