2025 March Madness Men’s Field Predictions

Rules

ESPN’s Bracketology efforts are focused on projecting the NCAA tournament field, just as we expect the NCAA Division in the Basketball Committee to select the field in March. ESPN bracketologist Joe Lunardi uses the same data points favored by the committee, including the strength of schedule and other season long indicators, including Netto and Teamark data, similar to that available to NCAA in his projections of the field. Visit NCAA’s web site to get a fuller understanding of NCAA selection criteria.

68 team fittings

The 68 team bracket is the standard version of the NCAA tournament field that has been in place since 2011. If the 2021 field consists of 68 teams, however, there will be some important differences for previous years.

The primary adjustment from a normal year is of course played by the entire NCAA tournament in a single place. This eliminates the need for geographical considerations in grafting. In addition, there will be at least a fewer automatic qualification this season as Ivy League’s decision to waive the 2020-21 season reduces the number of AQ items to 31 for this season.

48 team fittings

In this projection, a condensed selection process would reduce the field by 10 AT-sized teams and 10 automatic qualifications (the latter of which still receives an income unit). The four top seeds in each region would receive a goodbye into the second round, with the first four round matches per year. Region – 5 against 12, 6 against 11, 7 vs. 10 and 8 vs. 9 – was played without fans on the higher seed’s home ground.

To minimize travel, pairings are led in the first round of geography as much as possible. And the reduced field results in only 32 teams competing in the central place. All participants must place a minimum .500 conference record – “Lunardi rule” – to great consideration.

16-team fittings

In this projection, select and seeds the 16 best available teams the 16 best available teams. There are no automatic qualifications, although all non-competing conference masters receive the designated revenue unit.

To maintain some sense of national balance, the conference participation is limited to four teams. And no region should have more than one team from the same conference.