Image Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

How are the teams picked for March Madness?

The March Madness selection features a mix of automatic bids and at-large bids.

Image Credit: Rick Osentoski-USA TODAY Sports

March Madness is one of the biggest events in college basketball, bringing 68 teams together to compete for the national championship. The March Madness selection features a mix of automatic bids and at-large bids. Let’s take a closer look at how the field is selected.

Automatic bids

Out of the 68 teams selected for March Madness, 31 are done by automatic bids. These automatic bids are given to the 31 conference tournament winners. On Selection Sunday, the committee seeds them. Out of these 31, four lowest ranked seeds, play in the First-four.

At-large bids

The NCAA Division I Men’s basketball committee selects the remaining 36 teams out of the 68 for March Madness. The four lowest ranked selections by the committee fight against the four lowest ranked conference tournament winners to make the final 64 teams.

How are the 37 at-large bids selected?

The faith of the 37 teams lie in the hands of the NCAA committee. They go through various parameters such as NET Rankings, Strength of Schedule, QUAD wins and losses, conference results and many more.

NET rankings (NCAA Evaluation Tool)

The NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET) is the primary ranking system used by the NCAA Selection Committee to evaluate college basketball teams for tournament selection and seeding.

What are the NET Rankings?

Here's EVERYTHING you need to know. Be on the lookout for the first release 👀 pic.twitter.com/kdZwDEjFPS
— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) November 26, 2018

QUAD WINS and Losses

The NET rankings helps seed the team in four quadrants. These are also based on game’s location, home, away and neutral. Let’s take a look at those four quadrants:

Quadrant	Home games (Opponent NET rankings)	Away games (Opponent NET rankings)	Neutral games (Opponent NET rankings)
Q1	1-30	1-50	1-75
Q2	31-75	51-100	76-135
Q3	76-160	101-200	136-240
Q4	161-353	201-353	241-353

For example: Duke plays a 150th ranked team on NET calculations, at a neutral site. The game ends in a loss for Duke, that will be considered a Quadrant 3 loss and can hurt their seed. However, the 150th ranked NET team winning against DUKE will be considered a Quadrant 1 win. This can increase their chances of making the March Madness.

March Madness

Suryansh Kumar

NBA/WNBA Writer

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Hello, my name is Suryansh, and I write NBA/WNBA content for ThePlayoffs. I love sports, which is why I write and I love the NBA because of the stats. My aim is to find unique stats and perspectives to provide my readers with another angle on sports.