By JUSTIN KANE
Sixty-five teams are about to battle it out for a chance to be crowned the national champion of the college basketball world. The teams are selected by 30 automatic bids who are conference winners and 35 “at-large” teams who are selected based on factors such as rankings, wins-losses and rating percentage index. The 64th and 65th team selected for the tournament plays a “play-in game” in Dayton, Ohio. The winner of this game becomes the last16 seed and faces one of the number one seeds.
The bracket is split into four regions: East, West, Midwest and South. The selection committee seeds teams in an “S” pattern, with the highest #1 seed in the same region plays the lowest #16 seed, while the #2 team plays the #15. The effect of this seeding structure ensures that the better seeded a team is, the worse seeded their opponents will be.
Since the 65 team tournament began in 2001, millions of Americans participate in office pools and underground gambling to see who can come up with a near perfect bracket. The odds for correctly picking a bracket are 18.4 quintillion to 1.
People from all ages participate in pools. Even on campus some participate in bracket pools.
“We had about 20 people in our pool and I needed a way to get some money,” a junior boy* said.
The entire tournament is available in high definition and is broadcasted on CBS. The first round of the tournament starts March 18 and ends April 5 with the national championship game. CBS also launched March Madness On Demand, which is a free Web site that allows one to watch every game of the tournament for free.
*name witheld