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March Madness

March Madness: Is the excitement limited to only D1 college teams? Uncover the full story

As we fill out our brackets, you may notice that your favorite college is not among the schools available. What are the criteria for taking part?

As we fill out our brackets, you may notice that your favorite college is not among the schools available. What are the criteria for taking part?
Lance King
Jeffrey May
Jeffrey May
A product of Cajun country in south Louisiana, Jeff played football through high school, and baseball through college and beyond. After getting a BFA from the Savannah College of Art & Design, he moved to London, where he worked for Sky Sports and coached the 2005 British Champion Croydon Pirates baseball team. He also cooks a mean jambalaya.
Update:

March Madness, stated simply, is the largest tournament in college basketball. This event is so crazy because it’s set up in such a way that underdogs have a real chance of winning, and to completely create unexpected results. This means that experts and commentators are notoriously wrong when predicting the winner.

Is March Madness only for basketball D1 teams?

The NCAA is made up entirely of Division I Men’s Basketball teams and the NCAA Division I Women’s Basketball teams, but invitation is not available to all teams. Each tournament is made up of 68 college teams.

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The 32 winning teams from each of the 32 conferences will get one of the 32 automatic invitations into the competition. There are also 36 “at-large” bids awarded to teams nationwide who are thought to be the most competitive runner-ups. Teams from the major conferences, including the ACC, Big 12, SEC, and Pac-12, often get these bids.

How are teams selected for March Madness?

A selection committee made up of athletic directors and commissioners is appointed for five years, and they have the final say on who is offered a bid. To help them make this decision, they use a metric called the NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) which takes account of:

  • Game results
  • Strength of schedule
  • Location (home, away, or neutral site)
  • Scoring margin. No added credit is given for victory margins above 10 points, with overtime games assigned a margin of 1 point, regardless of the final score.
  • Net offensive and defensive efficiency
  • All games will be evaluated equally, without taking into account when in the season a game takes place.
  • Quality of wins and losses.

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