2024 March Madness tips off today with 64 teams hoping to become national champions (file photo/NCAA)
It’s beginning to look a lot like March Madness! Brackets are locked in, and college basketball fans are ready as over the next three weeks, 64 teams will play in the single elimination tournament to find out who is the best basketball team in the nation.
Millions of people across the globe have filled out their brackets, taking part in one of the most annually anticipated sporting events all year.
The odds of filling out a perfect bracket, meaning picking all 63 games correctly, is about one in 120 billion, and has never been accomplished, yet sports fans still participate in the bracket challenge in hopes of being the lucky one.
For those who are unaware, after a selection committee comes together the week before the tournament begins and selects the top 64 teams, the teams are seeded from 1 through 16 based on record, strength of schedule, quality of wins, and other advanced statistics to decide the seeding.
The 64-team first round field is then divided into four sections, East, South, West and Midwest, with each region having their own 1 through 16 seeded bracket.
The No. 1 seeds this year are defending champions UConn, North Carolina, Purdue, and Houston.
For some context, only two 16 seeded teams have ever defeated a number one seed before. In 2018, University of Maryland Baltimore County shocked the world of basketball after they dismantled number one seed Virginia. And last year, No. 16 Farleigh Dickinson upset the seemingly favourite to win the whole tournament top-seeded Purdue.
The NCAA tournament consists of six rounds, the first and second rounds, which are to played this weekend, the Sweet 16 and Elite 8, which is the following weekend, and the Final Four and the title game which will take place in State Farm Stadium in Glendale, Arizona on Saturday, April 6 and Monday, April 8.
Catch tip-off for the first game of March Madness at 10 a.m. as No. 8 Mississippi State takes on No. 9 Michigan State.
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