Everything You Need to Know to Win Your March Madness Bracket

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Somewhere, an entire team of basketball players is getting fitted for their glass slippers. 

Because no doubt the Cinderella stories are the true shining moments of the annual Men's and Women's NCAA Basketball Tournaments. 

Whether it was the Stephen Curry and his Davidson Wildcats in 2008, Sister Jean and the Ramblers of Loyola Chicago in 2018 or the peacocks of Saint Peter's in 2022, the whole world seemingly gets behind the squads that best the basketball Goliaths like Kansas, Kentucky, Connecticut and North Carolina.

And maybe they help us feel better about the fact that our preferred team was sent home in the first round, taking our busted brackets with them. 

After all, who doesn't love an underdog? (Well, other than the fanbases of the teams they beat. We're looking at you, Virginia and Purdue!) 

And now that the 68-team March Madness brackets have been set, we'll soon see what happens when a team of athletes keep on believing that the dream that they wish will come true. 

When does March Madness start?

The NCAA men's basketball tournament tipped off Tuesday, March 17 with the women suiting up the following day. The action stars with the First Four, which features eight teams playing for a spot in the official round of 64. 

Starting with the first round (March 19 for the men, March 20 for the women), each stage cuts the field in half from 64 to 32, followed by the Sweet 16, the Elite Eight, the Final Four and then the last two teams competing for a national championship. 

For the Final Four—the last three games of each tournament—the women will hit the hardwood at Phoenix's Mortgage Matchup Center starting April 3. The men will check in on April 4 at Indianapolis' Lucas Oil Stadium.

Okay, great. Can you teach me about basketball?

Of course! Huddle up. Each side gets the whole of the 30-second shot clock to make a basket. No matter how the ball goes through the hoop—whether it's a layup, jump shot, pull-up, bank shot, fadeaway—the player earns their squad two points. If they shoot their shot from beyond the three-point arc, it's worth, well, three points. 

Should a player miss the basket and someone from the other team snags the rebound, a new shot clock starts and they get the chance to score. If the player or someone on their team gets the rebound, they can keep shooting until the shot clock expires. One last note: If the player misses the basket, but hits the rim, they get a whole new 20-second shot clock. 

Teams can also score points through free throws that occur when a foul is called by the referees. If that foul takes place against a player in the act of shooting (or if the team has accumulated enough total fouls that they are in the bonus situation), that player is awarded free throws. 

If their shot goes in, they get the chance to take one additional shot from the free-throw line. If it's a miss, they get two shots. 

Got it? No? Well, the most important takeaway is that whichever team has the most points at the end of two 20-minute halves (or four 10-minute quarters for women) bounces away with the win. 

All right, who are the top-seeded teams in the NCAA tournament?

While every team technically has a shot at winning it all, generally speaking the top-seeded teams are considered the odds-on favorites. For the men, that would be Arizona, Michigan, Florida, Duke, Connecticut, Houston, Iowa State and Purdue.

As for the women's squads looking to breakaway from the pack, there's UCLA, South Carolina, Texas, Vanderbilt, Iowa, LSU, Michigan and last year's winner UConn. 

How do I make a perfect NCAA bracket?

Pure dumb luck, perhaps? By all means, shoot your shot, but there's no documented evidence of anyone accomplishing this feat, so maybe just aim for besting your besties. 

A few smart plays to keep in mind: Only two 16 seeds have ever beat their opposing one seeds in the men's tourney—UMBC in 2018 and Fairleigh Dickinson in 2023—so keeping the top seeds through the first round is a sound strategy. Similarly, two seeds don't frequently lose to 15 seeds. And with the women it's even more rare—16 seed Harvard in 1998 is the only team seeded 14 through 16 to advance through the first round. 

That being said, there are always upsets and correctly predicting those bracket busters is usually the key to dribbling past your opponents. The NCAA calculated that in the last 40 years, only 13 tournaments have featured fewer than seven upsets, to that may just be the lucky number. (Though in 2025, the men's contest only saw five double-digit seeds advance in the first round.)