How to Understand March Madness Seeding Rules

If you're a basketball fan, then you know what March Madness is all about. If you aren't but want to learn, you might not understand the seeding rules. March Madness is the start of the Men's National Basketball Championships for the NCAA, Division 1. The teams are chosen to play one another by a method called seeding.

Instructions

    • 1

      Understand that the winners of their conference tournaments automatically get chosen to be part of the tournament. There are 30 teams chosen this way.

    • 2

      Know that the season champion for the Ivy League gets to play also. There's no conference tournament for them, so it is the regular season statistics.

    • 3

      Picture a group of 10 people that are athletic directors or conference commissioners being holed up in a room. This group is called the selection committee and they decide who gets the other 34 places.

    • 4

      Comprehend the difficulty of making the decision. The committee uses statistics for losses and wins, RPI (Ratings Percentage Index), which uses the schedule strength and general performance in recent games. The top 25 rated teams make the cut.

    • 5

      Notice how well the regions are balanced. The selection committee try to make certain that each region is balanced in strength with the other. If you look at the top 8 teams, whoever has the number one pick on that list usually gets the number 8 as the second pick. This is done so no one region has all the power. The same is true of the next group of 8.

    • 6

      Know that the number 1 team in the region plays the number 16 team. The same night number 8 and number 9 team play. The second section has number 2 versus number 15 and number 7 versus number 10. The third section is number 3 versus number 14 and number 6 versus number 11. The last section is number 4 versus number 13 and number 6 versus number 12. The winner in each section play each other, leaving 4 winners.

    • 7

      Cheer for your favorite team in the Sweet Sixteen. The teams play each other in elimination until there are 8, 4, and then the playoff.