MARCH MADNESS  2007

How it Works

The term March Madness, today, is synonymous with the College Basketball Tournament, but the nickname was first used to describe another basketball tournament -- the annual Illinois High School Association tournament. Henry V. Porter is credited with coining the phrase in his 1939 article for the Illinois Interscholastic magazine, "March Madness."

March Madness was not used to describe the College Basketball tournament until 1982, when Brent Musburger, a CBS reporter, used the term during the telecast of a tournament game. College basketball fans and the media have been using the term ever since.

Today, after a court battle over the ownership of the term, March Madness is co-owned by the College and IHSA through the March Madness Athletic Association.

Many sports use a tournament format to decide their champion, including professional sports. The "Final Four" of college basketball refers to the semifinal round of the Division I Men's Basketball Tournament. In this round, there are four teams left, and two games are played to determine which two teams will head to the finals.

March Madness is the concentrated hype of 65 teams vying for college basketball's biggest prize.

Why 65 Teams In The Men's Tournament? In 2001, the men's tournament field expanded because 31 conferences received automatic bids. The committee selects at 34 at-large teams. The two teams seeded 64 and 65 play in an "opening round" game the Tuesday before the first-round games. The winner of this game moves into the championship bracket as a No. 16 seed.

Of course part of what makes the NCAA Tournament so great is that you never know what is going to happen. George Mason and Final Four were never mentioned in the same sentence until it actually happened.

The NCAA tournament is played over a period of three weeks, usually beginning on the third Thursday in March. After the sixty-fourth and sixty-fifth teams of the men's tournament play in an opening round, the real tournament begins.

Over the first two full days of the tournament, the field of 64 teams is pared to 32 games. In the next two days, the field is trimmed to 16 -- the Sweet 16. These final 16 teams take a four-day break before resuming play on the next Thursday. During the second week of the tournament, the field is trimmed from 16 to four. These teams comprise the tournament's Final Four.

Making it to the Final Four means that a team won its first four tournament games, and it only has to win two more to be the national champions. A team that reaches this point in the tournament is already envisioning the hanging of a National Championship banner from the rafters of its home arena, a common tradition.

The Final Fours are played in April, but they are still full of the March Madness syndrome. Typically, the men's semifinal games are played on the first Saturday in April. The winners of those games move on to face each other in their respective championship games, which are played on the subsequent Monday.

The NCAA tournaments are an American tradition that sends millions of fans into a synchronized frenzy each year. It is this chaos that gives the tournament its March Madness nickname. It's the last-second, buzzer-beating baskets, the euphoria of winning to play another day, and the agony of losing and going home.

Before you know it the 2007 Final Four will be here and it’s a good bet several teams from the Atlantic Coast Conference will be in contention for the NCAA basketball title. Of course Duke and North Carolina immediately come to mind, but the ACC also sent Boston College to the Sweet 16 in 2006 and it would be no surprise to see a few others make it in 2007.

Opening Round:
Tuesday, March 13, 2007 UD Arena
Dayton, Ohio
University of Dayton