NCAA basketball championships are a group of tournaments played at the end of the regular season in March and April to determine national college champions in men’s and women’s basketball in the United States. Tournaments are held in three divisions. The schools with the largest athletic programs compete in Division I. The schools with smaller programs compete in Division II or Division III. The Division I men’s tournament is one of the biggest events on the annual American sports calendar. Played mostly during March, the tournament has been labeled March Madness and is one of the most-watched television sports events of the year in the United States.
The men’s and women’s tournaments include the champions of all the Division I athletic conferences, who receive automatic invitations. Other teams are awarded at-large bids. These bids are issued by specially appointed NCAA selection committees. All the tournaments are single-elimination—that is, a team is eliminated after losing one game.
Teams in all the tournaments are divided into four regions. Each team is seeded (ranked) within its region. Lower-ranked teams play higher-ranked teams, with the winners advancing and the losers being eliminated. Winning teams are not reseeded after each round but rather remain in their bracketed position. The final 16 teams are popularly called the Sweet Sixteen, followed by the Elite Eight and the Final Four. The two winners of the Final Four games play for the championship.
The men’s Division I tournament is the oldest of the NCAA basketball championships, with the first tournament held in 1939. Women’s competition in all three divisions began in 1982. The women’s NCAA tournament was preceded by tournaments sponsored from 1972 to 1982 by the Association for Intercollegiate Athletics for Women (AIAW). The University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA) has won 11 Division I men’s championships, more than any other school. The University of Connecticut leads in women’s Division I championships, also with 11.
