March Madness for dummies

March Madness happens every year in March. Look, the title says this is for dummies, so don’t get mad at me for explaining the obvious. If you’ve clicked on this, it’s because you don’t understand how this tournament works, but you want to, whether it’s because you want to fit in with a group or learn how to make your own bracket - there are no shortage of reasons and it’s never too late to learn about the madness. Allow me to help!

NCAA Basketball Tournament

The first thing you need to know is that March Madness is a college basketball tournament, run by the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association). There is both a men’s and a women’s tournament which happen at the same time, with the dates slightly differing (full 2026 schedule is below). There are several rounds (which I will go over) played by 68 college teams. That eventually leads to the “Final Four”, when just four schools remain, who play each other to see who will go on to play in the national championship game.

How are the 68 teams chosen?

32 of the 68 teams chosen are “automatic bids”, meaning they were the teams that won their conference’s tournament and thus automatically get into the March Madness tournament. The other 36 are considered “at-large” bids, and will be selected by the NCAA Selection Committee.

Selection Sunday and the First Four

On “Selection Sunday”, which was held on March 15 this year, the 68 teams are ranked by a selection committee based on how well they played in the regular season. The opening round of the tournament, known as the First Four (on March 17 and 18 for men and 18 and 19 for women this year) will be played to eliminate four of the 68 teams, leaving 64 remaining. The eight teams who play in the First Four are the worst four at-large bids competing against the worst four automatic bids.

Then, from those 64 teams, the tournament is split into four different regions, with 16 teams in each. The regions are East, West, South and - no, not North - Midwest. Do try and keep up. Within the regions, the teams are ranked one through 16, which will be the team’s seed. The No.1 seed should in theory be better than the No.16 seed.

After this, there are six rounds.

First Round

This year’s First Round will be played on March 20 and 21 for men and 21 and 22 for women. The No.1 teams in each region will play their region’s No.16 team. The next-highest team will play the next-lowest, etc. After this, it gets pretty simple. The teams that lose are out.

Second Round

This year, the second round (Round of 32) will be played on March 19 and 20 for men and 20 and 21 for women. The remaining 32 teams will play in 16 brackets and the winners of each bracket then move on to the next round and the losers again are eliminated from the tournament.

Sweet 16

The third round (also known as Sweet 16) will be played on March 26 and 27 for men and 27 and 28 for women. At this point, there will be - you guessed it - 16 teams remaining. Those teams will be set up in games against other teams within their regional division. Within those divisions, there will be an East, West, South, and…do you remember? Nope, it’s not North, but Midwest region. The losers are eliminated and the winners move on to the next round.

Elite 8

The eight winners from the previous round will be set up in a head-to-head tournament known as the Elite Eight. This year’s Elite Eight games will be played on March 28 and 29 for men and 29 and 30 for women. Losers go home. Winners move on. You’re starting to get it now, aren’t you?

Final Four

There are only four teams remaining at this point, known cleverly as the Final Four. This year’s Final Four will be played on April 4 for men and April 3 for women. I know, it’s called March Madness, not April Madness. But why does Oktoberfest happen in September? It’s just the way it is, okay? Now, say it with me…Losers are out. Winners move on. But this time, the winners will be only two and they will play in the championship game.

NCAA Championship game

The final championship game will be on April 6 for men and April 5 for women this year. The winner of this game is the biggest winner of all, the final, the champion, the legend for a year. They get bragging rights.

March Madness Brackets

You have probably heard all about the brackets for March Madness, and indeed it’s probably what brought you here to this article. Basically, you’ve no chance of actually winning the bracket with 100 percent accuracy, because this is nearly impossible to do and has never actually been done. Part of the “madness” of March Madness is the upsets!

Though in the First Round, we have good teams playing less-good teams, there’s been known to be plenty of unexpected upsets in the past, especially in the No.5 vs No.12 and No.6 vs No.11 games, so keep that in mind when creating your bracket.

After the First Round, it just gets harder to predict. Try not to go too mad - the odds are VERY slim you’ll predict the bracket with much accuracy at all. NCAA.com went ahead and crunched the numbers for us, and to save you the headache, we’ll just tell you that your chances of picking all 63 games with 100 percent accuracy are 1 in 9.2 quintillion. Yeah, I bet that’s a number you’ve never said out loud before. But hey, it’s still fun to try, isn’t it? Just in case. Madness.

Complete men’s NCAA tournament schedule

Complete women’s NCAA tournament schedule

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