The NCAA single elimination tournament March Madness is right around the corner.
The NCAA March Madness tournaments are just around the corner, ready to feature the most competitive and entertaining basketball that collegiate sports have to offer. Sixty-eight teams fighting to become national champions will be ready to roll starting March 19, for the men, and March 20, for the women.
The single-elimination tournament is incredibly competitive as hundreds of NBA and WNBA prospects are under the spotlight on the court, giving it their all to increase their draft prospects and bring glory to their school.
The tournament is extremely popular as it is known for its brutal upsets, where unlikely heroes emerge, like 16 seed Fairleigh Dickinson upsetting the number one seeded Purdue in the first round of the 2023 men’s tournament. Or the legendary elite eight run from the 15 seed Saint Peter’s in 2022, beating Kentucky, Murray State, and Purdue again, noticing a pattern?
Perhaps the most famous moments from the past several years were in 2023 when the LSU Tigers, backed by Angel Reese, beat out the Iowa Hawkeyes, backed by Catilin Clark, winning LSU their first NCAA Title ever. The heavily anticipated matchup between Reese and Clark drew in nearly 10 million viewers, the most-watched women’s basketball game in history. That year, ESPN announced that viewership for the Final Four, Elite Eight and Sweet 16 set records, with 9.9 million watching the final. By comparison, the just-completed World Series averaged 9.1 million viewers, according to Nielsen ratings.
The tournament brackets work as follows: 68 teams in the first round, 32 teams in the second round, and then things start to pick up at what is called the sweet sixteen. Then only eight teams remain, and only half will make it to the legendary final four, where the victors will then play for a national championship.
The current predictions for the men’s tournament according to Polymarket odds have Duke university as the favourites (20 per cent), Michigan (19 per cent), and Arizona (18 per cent). But if you wanted to take a risk you could bet on the 13 seed Hofstra who are making their first appearance since 2001 and have less than a one per cent chance of winning, just think of that sweet return though.
Duke Blue Devils are to be feared in this tournament, with the number one player in the NCAA Cameron Boozer, but BYU has the close number two and my favourite player AJ Dybantsa. Sadly, BYU has less than a one per cent chance of winning a national title.
The current predictions for the women’s tournament according to Kalshi have the powerhouse UConn to win the tournament as massive favourites (66 per cent), where the next best is UCLA at 15 per cent. UConn are 34-0, and have two number one ranked prospects in their class, Sarah Strong and Azzi Fudd are absolute dogs, and have been terrorizing teams all year long, the March Madness Tournament should be a walk in the park.
If you want to guess who the winners of each tournament will be, create your own bracket predictions for the men’s tournament challenge, and women’s tournament challenge on ESPN.
