Don’t let that page of 68 school names intimidate you. Everyone who wants to build a winning NCAA men’s tournament bracket is in the same boat: Pick a bunch of favorites, play a few hunches and cross your fingers.
Regardless of how much research you do, your odds of picking all 63 games – not including the four play-in games – correctly are impossibly large. Perhaps that’s why we’ll give you $1 million to do it.
So your bracket doesn’t need to be perfect. Just a little lucky.
Printable 2025 NCAA March Madness bracket
We’ll give you a few trends based on 39 years of history since the tournament grew to 64 teams. Our tips will get you started, but you’ll still need to make a few guesses – educated or not – along the way.
Below is a different way to look at the traditional NCAA Tournament bracket. The first round comes down to four sets of these eight pairings. These 2,496 squares below represent all the teams – not counting the play-in teams – that have competed in the tournament since 1985.
1a. NCAA Tournament first-round winners are usually the top seeds
Unable to view our graphics? Click here to see them.
If you just pick the highest-seeded team throughout the tournament, your odds improve significantly – especially through the first few rounds. That makes the No. 1 and 2 seeds especially good bets in almost every tournament.
The NCAA has hosted its own online bracket contest during the past 10 tournaments. They’ve found that players get two-thirds of their picks right when they based their picks on ‘likely outcomes.’ That method improves your odds of a perfect bracket to 1 in 120.2 billion.
That’s 70 million times better than coin flipping, but likely outcomes probably won’t be enough to win among your friends and co-workers.
1b. Lowest-seeded teams might not be a good bet to upset
The 15th- and 16th-seeded teams have won a combined 13 times in the past 39 years, or once every three years. So the odds are stacked against those eight lowest-seeded teams again this year because of No. 15 Princeton’s and No. 16 Fairleigh Dickinson’s wins in the 2023 tournament.
Perhaps we’re either seeing the start of a new trend, or, more likely, you can feel relatively confident picking all the No. 1 and 2 seeds. If you do want to take a flier (which you’ll need to do to win), maybe try a few seeds up. On average, a 13 seed knocks off a 4 seed about once per tournament.
Which seeds have the best records in the round of 32
Not unsurprisingly, 47% or more of the 4 seeds or higher make it through to the Sweet 16. What might be surprising: If a 10, 11 and 12 seed wins their first-round game, they have a 40% chance of moving on to the Sweet 16.
3. How many upsets you should pick in you NCAA Tournament bracket
The guessing game begins here in Step 3 where you’ll likely differentiate your bracket from everyone one else’s.
On average between 1985 and 2024, there’ve been 8.5 upsets per tournament, or just about 13% of the 63 games, according to the NCAA. That said, some years are bound to break brackets. Both 2021 and 2022 had 14 total upsets.
The NCAA’s upset numbers don’t include the 8 vs. 9 games. That’s probably the best time to consider flipping a coin to make your picks. That said, the 9 seeds currently have a six-game edge on the 8s, so that might argue for a majority of 8-seed winners this year.
Upset rates for the first four rounds of the NCAA Tournament
While the 39-year average is just over eight upsets per year, upsets have become a bit more commonplace. In nine of the past 13 years, lower seeds have won at least 10 games, according to the NCAA. There were 10 upsets in 2023 and nine in 2024.
4. Picking the Final Four gets more challenging
Since 2011, at least one No. 7 seed or lower has made in the Final Four – except for 2019. Even that tournament would have required some creative guessing. The eventual champion Virginia was a No. 1 seed, but the other three included No. 2 Michigan State, No. 3 Texas Tech and No. 5 Auburn.
Also, just picking all the No. 1 seeds to make the Final Four is less likely now than a No. 16 seed toppling a No. 1 seed, which has happened twice. All four No. 1 seeds made the Final Four only once: 2008.
5. A No. 1 seed is still the best choice for the tournament champion
Maybe you shouldn’t have four No. 1s in your Final Four, but they’ve piled up more than two dozen championships in nearly four decades, including nine of the past 12 tournaments. Since 2005, a No. 1 seed has won at least every other year.
Perhaps Connecticut will bring home its third consecutive championship this year?
Last season the Huskies were a heavily favored No. 1 seed, unlike 2023 when they started at No. 4. They have an even tougher road this year as an 8 seed. Should they win, Connecticut would be only the second 8 seed to win the tournament since 1985. The other schools that have won men’s basketball NCAA Championships:
Schools that have won the NCAA men’s tournament
What’s the longest a bracket has ever stayed perfect?
According to the NCAA, an Ohio man correctly predicted the entire 2019 men’s NCAA tournament into the Sweet 16, which set the record for the longest verified March Madness bracket win streak at 49 games. (The NCAA began tracking brackets from major online platforms, including their Men and Women’s Bracket Challenge Game, ESPN, CBS and Yahoo, since 2016.) Read more about perfect March Madness brackets here.