NCAA Bracket Information

The NCAA men's Division I basketball tournament uses a bracket that seeds teams in the tournament and creates the matchups between teams in each round.

  1. Geography

    • The NCAA men's basketball bracket is divided into four geographic regions: Midwest, West, East and South. Each game is played at a neutral site within the region. The winner of each region advances to the Final Four, which is played at a different site each year.

    Teams

    • The NCAA men's basketball bracket consists of 65 teams. Thirty-one teams are automatic qualifiers for winning their conference tournament, except in the case of the Ivy League, which does not have a conference tournament. In that case, the regular-season champion gets the league's automatic bid. Thirty-four teams are selected at-large based on various factors, including in-conference and out-of-conference wins and strength of schedule.

    Rounds

    • A "play-in" game matches the two teams that the selection committee ranks as the two lowest-rated teams in the tournament. The winner plays in the first round, which consists of 32 games involving 64 teams. The winners in each round advance to the next round, and the losers go home. A team needs to win six games to become champion.

    Selection Committee

    • The teams, sites for games and placement in brackets are decided by a 10-member selection committee that consists of athletic directors and conference commissioners involved in men's Division I basketball.

    Terms

    • A bracket-buster is a team that defeats a much higher-seeded opponent in the tournament. Sweet 16, Elite 8 and Final Four are terms used to describe the rounds in the tournament in which 16, eight or four teams are left.