March Madness is the commonly used name for the NCAA Tournament, held annually in March and April to determine the national champion of Division I men’s and women’s college basketball. The tournament is also referred to as “The Big Dance”.
In 1939, the first March Madness featured eight teams: Oregon, Texas, Oklahoma, Utah State, Villanova, Brown, Wake Forest and Ohio State. Oregon won the championship game against Ohio State, 46-33.
Until the 1950s, the National Invitation Tournament (NIT), founded in 1938, was the most important postseason college basketball competition. As the NCAA Tournament grew, the pool of teams for the NIT shrank. The watered-down event is, however, still played each spring.
In 1951, the men’s field in the NCAA tournament was expanded to 16 teams, then to 32 in 1975. In 1985, the field was doubled to 64 teams. In 2001, a play-in game was added, bringing the number of teams to 65. In 2011, three more play-in games were added to the tournament.
The 64 teams have been separated into four 16-team regions in which the No. 1 seed faces the No. 16 seed, the No. 2 seed faces the No. 15 seed and so on. The winner of each region meets each year in the Final Four, which takes place in a single location. The final 16 teams are called the “Sweet 16”. The final eight teams are called the “Elite Eight”.
The first women’s tournament was held in 1982. In the first championship game, Louisiana Tech defeated Cheyney, a school from Pennsylvania, 76-62. In 2021, the NCAA announced the expansion of the women’s tournament from 64 to 68 teams.
UCLA dominates men’s tournaments of the 1960s and early 1970s
UCLA won the most national titles, 11-10 under legendary coach John Wooden, nicknamed “The Wizard of Westwood.” The first took place in 1964, the second the following year. After falling short in 1966, the Bruins won seven straight titles from 1967 to 1973 and another in 1975.
UCLA’s March Madness dominance in the 1960s and 1970s was led by future NBA stars Gail Goodrich, Sidney Wicks and Marques Johnson and Hall of Fame centers Lew Alcindor (who later changed his name for Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) and Bill Walton.
Abdul-Jabbar, a 7-foot-2 center who became the NBA’s all-time leading scorer, played for the Bruins from 1967 to 1969. He averaged 25.3 points in 12 tournament games and guided UCLA to three straight titles. He was named tournament MVP three times.
In 1972 and 1973, Walton led UCLA to back-to-back championships. In that final title game, the 6-foot-11 Walton made 21 of 22 field goal attempts and scored 44 points in an 87-66 victory on Memphis State. Walton’s performance is considered one of the best by a player in tournament history.
In 1974, UCLA’s bid for an eighth consecutive title ended in the Final Four with an 80-77 defeat in double overtime to the eventual champion, North Carolina State. The Wolfpack was led by David Thompson, a 6-foot-4 guard and two-time Associated Press Player of the Year. North Carolina State defeated Marquette in the 1974 championship game, 76-64.
Notable NCAA Men’s Championship Teams
In 1983, sixth-seeded North Carolina State, coached by Jim Valvano, defeated the heavily favored Houston Cougars, led by future Hall of Famers Akeem (who later changed his first name to Hakeem) Olajuwon and Clyde Drexler. In a slow-paced back-and-forth game, the Wolfpack won, 54-52, on a buzzer-beating dunk by Lorenzo Charles.
In 1990, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, led by future NBA players Larry Johnson, Greg Anthony and Stacey Augmon, dominated the tournament. In the title game, the Runnin’ Rebels crushed Duke, 103-73, the largest margin of victory in a championship game in a men’s tournament.
UNLV continued its championship run through 1991, winning 34 straight games before a surprise 79-77 loss to Duke in the Final Four. The Blue Devils won the 1991 and 1992 championships, the first of coach Mike Krzyzewski’s five national titles.
In 2007, the Florida Gators became the first team since Duke to win back-to-back national titles. Florida coach Billy Donovan and a team led by three future NBA players — Joakim Noah, Al Horford and Corey Brewer —beat UCLA in the 2006 title game, 73-57. In the 2007 title match, Florida beat Ohio State, 84-75.
In 2018, Virginia became the first No. 1 seed to lose to a No. 16 seed when it was eliminated by Maryland-Baltimore County, 74-54. Virginie bounced back win the 2019 national championship game against Texas Tech, 85-77in overtime.
Notable Men’s NCAA Tournament Players
Duke’s Christian Laettner is the most prolific scorer in March Madness history with 407 points (17.7 per game) in 23 games, the most tournament games by any player. Laettner led Duke to a Final Four as a freshman, a runner-up finish as a sophomore and back-to-back national championships in 1991 and 1992.
In an Elite Eight match in 1992 against Kentucky, Laettner scored 31 points, making all 10 of his shots from the field and all 10 from the free throw line. He also took a shot at the buzzer to win the game in overtime, 104-103.
During the 1982 championship gameNorth Carolina freshman guard Michael Jordan—considered by many to be the greatest basketball player of all time—I made the winning shot with 17 seconds left to beat Georgetown, 63-62.
Kansas’ Danny Manning and Connecticut’s Kemba Walker had famous runs throughout the tournament that resulted in championships and MVP awards. In the 1988 tournament, Manning carried the No. 6 Jayhawks, averaging 27.2 points. In the championship gameKansas beat Oklahoma, 83-79. During the 2011 championship gameWalker led inexperienced Connecticut over Butler, 53-41.
In a game against Ohio in 1970, Notre Dame’s Austin Carr scored a tournament record 61 points.
Connecticut dominates women’s basketball tournament
Connecticut, led by Hall of Famer and winningest coach in Division I women’s college basketball Geno Auriemma, has won the most championships (11). Tag team titles occurred in 1995, 2000-2004, 2009, 2010 and 2013-2016. Six of Auriemma’s championship teams finished undefeated.
Auriemma was the first coach in women’s basketball history to guide a team to five consecutive Final Four appearances on two occasions.
In the 2013 national championship game, Connecticut defeated Louisville 93-60, the largest margin of victory in an NCAA women’s title game. In 2016, coming off four straight championships, UConn nearly matched its 2013 margin of victory by crushing Syracuse, 82-51.
Many of the greatest players in women’s basketball history played in Connecticut. Since 1995, UConn players have won the Associated Press Player of the Year award 12 times: Rebecca Lobo (1995), Jennifer Rizzotti (1996), Kara Wolters (1997), Sue Bird (2002), Diana Taurasi (2003) , Maya Moore. (2009 and 2011), Tina Charles (2010), Breanna Stewart (2014, 2015 and 2016) and Paige Bueckers (2021).
First NCAA Women’s Tournament
The women’s tournament, first held in 1982, began with 32 teams, then expanded to 64 teams before the 1994 season. In 1994, North Carolina defeated Louisiana Tech, 60-59, for the championship of the first 64-team NCAA women’s tournament.
In 1987, Pat Summitt won the first of his eight national championships, leading Tennessee over Louisiana Tech, 67-44. Tennessee also won championships in 1989 and 1991. Then, after watching rival Auriemma win her first championship in 1995, Summitt won championships in 1996, 1997 and 1998. She also won NCAA titles in 2007 and 2008.
Notable women’s NCAA tournament players
In the first women’s NCAA tournament, in 1982, Drake’s Lorri Bauman scored 50 points against Maryland, a women’s tournament record.
In 1983 and 1984, Southern California’s Cheryl Miller led her team to national championships. She was named MVP in each of USC’s title runs.
From 1996 to 1998, forward Chamique Holdsclaw led Tennessee to three national titles. She holds the women’s points record (479) in the tournament and was named tournament MVP in 1997 and 1998.
During the 2012 tournament, Brittany Griner, a 6-foot-9 center, led Baylor to its second national title. His 105 blocks constitute the record in the history of the tournament.
In 2018, Notre Dame’s Arike Ogunbowale hit game-winning shots in the Final Four to defeat then-undefeated Connecticut and then Mississippi State in the national championship game.
History of March Madness television
CBS has broadcast the men’s NCAA tournament since it snatched the rights from NBC in 1982. In 2016, CBS partnered with Turner Sports on an $8.8 billion deal that extended its broadcast rights until ‘in 2032.
The highest-rated tournament game was the 1979 showdown between Magic Johnson’s Michigan State and Larry Bird’s Indiana State, broadcast by NBC. The game earned a 24.1 rating and 35.1 million viewers.
The next two highest-rated title games were Villanova’s win over Patrick Ewing’s Georgetown Hoyas in 1985 and Duke’s win over the “Fab Five” Michigan Wolverines in 1992. Those games had 23.3 and 22, respectively, 7 notes.
Sources
Boxscores for NCAA tournament games College basketball reference
John Wooden “Wizard of Westwood”, ESPN
New York Times on NCAA tournament rights sold to CBS.
NCAA.com on the extension of TV rights for the NCAA tournament.
