March Madness

What is March Madness? March Madness is a basketball tournament that takes place every year in March. College basketball teams around the US compete for the top spot, and only 68 teams are allowed into March Madness.

First of all, how do you get into March Madness? Well, 32 teams are automatically admitted into the tournament. They do this by winning their local championship or conference. 28 of the other teams are hand-picked by the NCAA (National Collegiate Athletic Association) judges. The other four teams are decided by four play-in games, involving 8 teams, but only 4 make it into the First Round.

Once the teams are picked, they are separated into 4 groups and given a seed number from 1-16. The lower the number, the better they are within their group. This is a single elimination tournament, so once you lose, you're out.

The winners of the First Round go to the Second Round, and then the Sweet 16. Then, they go to the Elite 8, and afterwards, the Final Four. Finally, the championship game decides who is the winner of this amazing tournament.

So far in the men's tournament, the Kansas Jayhawks are the only #1 seed that made it to the Final Four. The other 3 teams who made it are UNC (#8 seed), Duke (#2 seed), and Villanova (#2 seed). Villanova played Kansas and lost, 65-81. On the other hand, UNC and Duke played each other and UNC won, but it was pretty close (81-77). This was the first time ever that UNC and Duke had played each other in the NCAA tournament, and both colleges are from the same city! The championship game took place on the night of April 4th, 2022, and the Kansas Jayhawks barely beat the North Carolina (UNC) Tar Heels, 72-69.

In the women's tournament, the Final Four was made up of 3 #1 seeds. It was Louisville (#1 seed), South Carolina (#1 seed), Stanford (#1 seed), and UConn (#2 seed). South Carolina beat Louisville, 72-59, and UConn beat Stanford (63-58) to both earn spots against each other in the championship game on April 3rd, 2022. UConn's Huskies put up a big fight, but the South Carolina Gamecocks comfortably kept the lead and won the game, 64-49.

This is a currently developing story and will be updated in the future.