Today is the start of March Madness. (Kinda.)

College basketball's postseason as a 350-team single elimination mecha-tournament featuring basically every team in the sport. And that starts today.

Today is the start of March Madness.

I know what you’re thinking: The NCAA Tournament can’t be starting today! I haven’t filled out my bracket yet! And you’re right. (SEO voice) The 2025 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament starts on Tuesday, March 18th with the First Four in Dayton, Ohio. The First Round of the 2025 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament will begin on March 20th.

But what makes college basketball so great to me is not just the NCAA Tournament. It’s the fact even now, as the regular season comes to an end, basically every team in the country¹ is still capable of winning the national championship. All they have to do is win their conference tournament, which will give them an autobid to the NCAA Tournament, and then win the NCAA Tournament. Voila! They’re national champs, easy. No major sport works like this. It’s too illogical and unnecessary and beautiful.

This essentially creates a 350-ish team single-elimination bracket, played all across the country, in massive arenas and tiny gyms, including the best teams in the sport and the worst: It’s the Criterion Collection Extended Director’s Cut of the NCAA Tournament…

…And it starts today.

The first day of conference tournament season is an unofficial holiday for me every year, marking the start of this unofficial bracket. (Last year I made a dumb little video about it.)

All we have on the docket today are two games in the first round of the men’s Atlantic Sun Tournament: 9-seed Stetson vs. 10-seed Central Arkansas and 7-seed Austin Peay vs. 8-seed North Florida. Both games are at 7 p.m. ET and will be broadcast on ESPN+².

It’s dreary stuff. The 9 vs. 10 game is between two 8-23 teams, ranked 351st and 352nd on Kenpom. (That’s significantly worse than Doug Gottlieb’s Green Bay Phoenix squad.) The reason these games are being played so early is because the A-Sun plays its tournament at home sites, which takes a while to pull off logistically. But these games are being played at the home sites of the #1 and #2-seeds, who will host tomorrow’s quarterfinals. So it’s the worst teams in the league

But let’s play this out. For the rest of this post, pretend we are diehard fans of the Central Arkansas Bears. We love Scottie Pippen. We love weird and ugly football fields. We don’t think it’s weird at all that your men’s teams are simply “the Bears” while the women’s teams are “the Sugar Bears.” And we have never made the NCAA Tournament³. But it’s still possible for us to can make it this year. It’s still possible for us to win it this year. Here’s the road map.

Let’s say our Bears beat Stetson tonight. And let’s say they pull the upset tomorrow night against top-seeded Lipscomb, devastating the home crowd. Then they’ll get back on the road to play in the semifinal, and if they win that, they’ll play in the Atlantic Sun championship game.

We’re off streaming and onto ESPN2 at this point. And if they win the league’s title game, they’re headed to the NCAA Tournament! We did it! The first ever bid for the Bears⁴!

They’ll likely play in the First Four in Dayton.. If they win that, they’ll have a quick turnaround to play a 1-seed two days later. When they win that—the biggest upset in NCAA Tournament history–they’ll play the winner of the 8-9 matchup, which will be much easier for them after taking down Goliath. Then they’ll be in the Sweet 16, the Elite Eight, and the Final Four.

And if they win their two games in San Antonio, Central Arkansas will be the national champions. I’ve made a helpful graphic. (Scottie looks so happy.)

It’s easy. Our Bears just need to win their next 11 games. It’s unlikely, sure. But the thing about college basketball is that as long as there’s time on the clock and a ball on the court, you’ve got a chance.

Welcome to March Madness. It’s gonna be a great month.

1. A handful of teams are ineligible or did not qualify for their tournaments. If elected President, I will ensure all Division I teams play in conference tournaments. (And also try to rebuild the federal bureaucracy, I guess.)

2. I got this info from Blogging The Bracket’s Conference Tournament Central, which Chris Dobbertean updates daily with each day’s matchups in every tournament in the country, game times, and how to watch. I basically refresh that page all day every day for the next two weeks.

3. Another page I constantly refresh during the next few weeks: This Google Sheet produced by the The Never Made The Tournament Club. It’s one of my projects my Northwestern blogging days, brought back from the dead and maintained by unhinged college hoops supersickos.

4. UCA was still in NAIA when Pippen played there……. and actually didn’t even make the NAIA Tournament during his time in Conway.