It’s that time of year again! The month-long event every college sports fanatic dreams about. The event that determines a school’s entire basketball legacy: March Madness. The NCAA college basketball play-offs, more commonly known as March Madness, started in 1939 and 1982 for men and women respectively, and soon became a nation-wide phenomenon, with millions tuning in each year.

But how did this competition get its famous nickname? How did it capture the attention of the entire USA? And who are the favorites going into the Sweet 16 in this year’s tournament?

In the first NCAA men’s basketball tournament in 1939, Oregon beat Ohio State to become the first tournament winner. Since then, there have been drastic changes to the tournament, such as rules about the game and seeding. One major change has been the number of teams. In that 1939 tournament, there were only 8 teams. The total since then has increased to 64 teams.

The name of this competition, March Madness, originated from its maiden season, when Henry V. Porter, a high school official in Illinois, described the tournament as “a little march madness”. Ever since then, the name has been synonymous with the play-offs.

Now, in 2025, the tournament is as big as it ever was. The first was on March 20 and round two was on March 22. Today, we start the Sweet 16. So far, all the number one seeds are still in the competition: Auburn, Florida, Duke, and Houston. Duke is favored to win the tournament according to ESPN, and they are followed closely by Florida. The Blue Devils have won the tournament five times before. Winning this would tie them with their rivals, UNC with six. Duke is led by their star freshmen forward, Cooper Flagg. He was named the ACC player of the year and the rookie of the year. He is the fourth player in the history of the sport to complete that feat. Many scouts and analysts believe that Flagg is going to be the number one pick in the upcoming 2025 NBA draft.

If there’s one thing this tournament is known for, it’s for upsets. It’s the entire reason why it’s called “madness”. There have been countless close games, but one which has taken the internet by storm this year is when McNeese University, a 12th seed, beat the 9th seed Clemson. This gave McNeese their first March Madness win ever.
People say this is because their student manager, Amir “Aura” Khan, went viral on social media for walking into games with a giant boombox blasting music as the players entered the court. But sadly, McNeese’s viral tournament run got cut short when they lost to Purdue in the round of 32 teams.

The first games of the Sweet 16 start on Thursday, March 27 at 7:09 pm.