The NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament, also known and branded as NCAA March Madness, is a single-elimination tournament played each spring in the United States, currently featuring 68 college basketball teams from the Division I level of the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA), to determine the national championship. The tournament was created in 1939 by the National Association of Basketball Coaches, and was the idea of Ohio State coach Harold Olsen. Played mostly during March, it has become one of the biggest annual sporting events in the United States.
The UCLA Bruins are the athletic teams that represent the University of California, Los Angeles. The Bruin men's and women's teams participate in NCAA Division I as part of the Pac-12 Conference and the Mountain Pacific Sports Federation (MPSF). For football, they are in the Football Bowl Subdivision of Division I. UCLA is second to only Stanford University as the school with the most NCAA team championships at 119 NCAA team championships. UCLA offers 11 varsity sports programs for men and 14 for women.
The 1968 NCAA University Division Basketball Tournament involved 23 schools playing in single-elimination play to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball. It began on March 8, 1968, and ended with the championship game on March 23 in Los Angeles, California. A total of 27 games were played, including a third place game in each region and a national third place game.
The 1974 NCAA Division I Basketball Tournament involved 25 schools playing in single-elimination play to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball. It was the first tournament to be designated as a Division I championship—previously, NCAA member schools had been divided into the "University Division" and "College Division". The NCAA created its current three-division setup, effective with the 1973–74 academic year, by moving all of its University Division schools to Division I and splitting the College Division members into Division II and Division III. Previous tournaments would retroactively be considered Division I championships.
The 1991 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament involved 64 schools playing in single-elimination play to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball. It began on March 14, 1991, and ended with the championship game on April 1 in Indianapolis, Indiana. A total of 63 games were played.
In men's college basketball, the Game of the Century was a historic National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) game between the Houston Cougars and the UCLA Bruins played on January 20, 1968, at the Astrodome in Houston, Texas. It was the first NCAA regular season game broadcast nationwide in prime time. It established college basketball as a sports commodity on television and paved the way for the modern "March Madness" television coverage.
The North Carolina Tar Heels Men's basketball program is the college basketball team of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. The Tar Heels have won six National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) championships, in addition to a Helms Athletic Foundation title, and participated in a record twenty-one Final Fours. It is the only school to have reached at least one Final Four for nine straight decades and at least two Final Fours for six straight decades, all while averaging more wins per season played (20.7) than any other program in college basketball. In 2012, ESPN ranked North Carolina No. 1 on its list of the 50 most successful programs of the past fifty years.
The UCLA Bruins men's basketball program represents the University of California, Los Angeles in the sport of men's basketball as a member of the Pac-12 Conference. Established in 1919, the program has won a record 11 NCAA titles. Coach John Wooden led the Bruins to 10 national titles in 12 seasons, from 1964 to 1975, including seven straight from 1967 to 1973. UCLA went undefeated a record four times. Coach Jim Harrick led the team to another NCAA title in 1995. Former coach Ben Howland led UCLA to three consecutive Final Four appearances from 2006 to 2008. As a member of the AAWU, Pacific-8 and then Pacific-10, UCLA set an NCAA Division I record with 13 consecutive regular season conference titles between 1967 and 1979 which stood until passed by Kansas in 2018.
The Notre Dame Fighting Irish Men's Basketball team is the intercollegiate men's basketball program representing the University of Notre Dame in Notre Dame, Indiana, United States. The program competes in the Atlantic Coast Conference of NCAA Division I. On September 12, 2012, Notre Dame announced they would be moving to the Atlantic Coast Conference; they joined the conference on July 1, 2013. The school holds two retroactively awarded national championships in basketball from the Helms Foundation: for the 1927 and 1936 seasons. They have also played in the NCAA Tournament 36 times, good for 9th all time, and reached the Final Four in 1978. The Irish hold the record for most Tournament appearances without a championship or championship game appearance, one of five teams to have 30 or more appearances without a title and one of three teams to have more than 30 appearances without either. They are also the first Big East team to go undefeated at home two straight seasons. They play their home games in the Purcell Pavilion at the Edmund P. Joyce Center. Since moving to the Purcell Pavilion in 1968, they have had 44 winning seasons at the Purcell Pavilion, including 5 undefeated seasons at home and have had only 4 losing seasons at the Purcell Pavilion. Jeff Sagarin and ESPN listed the program 12th in the college basketball all-time rankings in the ESPN College Basketball Encyclopedia. The Fighting Irish are currently coached by Mike Brey.
The Wichita State Shockers men's basketball team is the NCAA Division I college basketball program representing Wichita State University in Wichita, Kansas.
College Basketball on NBC Sports is the de facto branding used for broadcasts of NCAA Division I men's college basketball games produced by NBC Sports, the sports division of the NBC television network in the United States. The NBC network broadcast college basketball games in some shape or form between 1969 and 1998. From 1969 to 1981, NBC covered the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament. It became the first major network to broadcast the championship game, at a cost of more than US$500,000 in 1969.
College Basketball on CBS Sports is the branding used for broadcasts of men's NCAA Division I basketball games that are produced by CBS Sports, for CBS, CBSSN, and Facebook.
The 1968–69 Princeton Tigers men's basketball team represented the Princeton University in intercollegiate college basketball during the 1968–69 NCAA University Division men's basketball season. The head coach was Pete Carril and the team captain was Christopher Thomforde. The team played its home games in the Dillon Gymnasium on the university campus before the January 25, 1969, opening of Jadwin Gymnasium on the university campus in Princeton, New Jersey. The team was the champion of the Ivy League, which earned them an invitation to the 25-team 1969 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament. The team was Princeton's first undefeated Ivy League champion, and earned Carril his first of eleven NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament invitations. The team helped Princeton end the decade with a 72.6 winning percentage (188–71), which was the tenth best in the nation.
The 2017 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament involved 68 teams playing in a single-elimination tournament to determine the men's National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I college basketball national champion for the 2016–17 season. The 79th edition of the tournament began on March 14, 2017, and concluded with the championship game on April 3 at University of Phoenix Stadium in Glendale, Arizona. The championship game was the first to be contested in a Western state since 1995 when Seattle was the host of the Final Four.
The 1993 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship Game took place on April 5, 1993 between the North Carolina Tar Heels and Michigan Wolverines at the Louisiana Superdome in New Orleans, Louisiana. The match-up was the final one of the fifty-fifth consecutive NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship single-elimination tournament — commonly referred to as the NCAA Tournament — organized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and is used to crown a national champion for men's basketball at the Division I level.
The 1946 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship Game took place on March 26, 1946 between the North Carolina Tar Heels and Oklahoma A&M Aggies at Madison Square Garden in New York City, New York. The match-up was the final one of the eighth consecutive NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship single-elimination tournament — commonly referred to as the NCAA Tournament — organized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and is used to crown a national champion for men's basketball at the Division I level.
The 1981 NCAA Division I Basketball Championship Game took place on March 30, 1981 between the North Carolina Tar Heels and Indiana Hoosiers at The Spectrum in Philadelphia. The matchup was the final one of the forty-third consecutive NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship single-elimination tournament — commonly referred to as the NCAA Tournament — organized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and is used to crown a national champion for men's basketball at the Division I level.
The 1977 NCAA Division I Basketball Championship Game took place on March 28, 1977, between the North Carolina Tar Heels and the Marquette Warriors at The Omni in Atlanta, Georgia. The matchup was the final one of the thirty-ninth consecutive NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Championship single-elimination tournament — commonly referred to as the NCAA Tournament — organized by the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) and is used to crown a national champion for men's basketball at the Division I level.
The 2018 NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Tournament began on March 16, 2018, and concluded with the national championship game on Sunday, April 1. The Final Four was played at Nationwide Arena in Columbus, Ohio. This is the third time that the women's Final Four was played in Ohio after previously being held in Cincinnati in 1997 and Cleveland in 2007 and the first time that the women's Final Four was played in Columbus. For only the fourth time in the tournament’s 37-year history, all four of the number one seeds made it to the Final Four.
