Filling out a March Madness bracket can be an intimidating task but fear not — we've got data on our side. When trying to build a winning Men's NCAA Tournament bracket many people fall into this pattern: Pick a bunch of favorites, pick a few upsets and cross your fingers.
Regardless of how much research you do, your odds of picking all 63 games — not including the four play-in games — correctly are impossibly large. Perhaps that's why we'll give you $1 million to do it.
We'll give you a few trends based on 39 years of history (1985-2024) since the tournament grew to 64 teams. Our tips will get you started, but you'll still need to make a few guesses — educated or not — along the way.
Below is a different way to look at the traditional NCAA Tournament bracket. The first round comes down to four sets of these eight pairings. These 2,496 squares below represent all the teams — not counting the play-in teams — that have competed in the tournament from 1985 through 2024.
Unable to view our graphics? Click here to see them.
