March Madness
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8correct to beat the crowd
180 free March Madness trivia questions with answers — sports quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
50 free March Madness trivia questions with answers. Every March, 68 teams enter, one cuts down the nets, and millions of brackets get busted along the way. From Cinderella stories to legendary buzzer-beaters, March Madness delivers drama like nothing else in sports.
30 of 180 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What is the name of the day, typically in mid-March, when the tournament bracket is revealed?
Selection Sunday
Selection Sunday is when the committee reveals the full bracket and seedings; in 2015 the NCAA began handing the NIT's top seeds to the last teams cut from its own field.
Q 02Since 1973, the NCAA semifinals have been played on a Saturday and the championship game on which day?
Monday
Monday night has hosted the title game since 1973; until then the championship itself was played on a Saturday, with the semifinals on Thursday or Friday.
Q 03Besides March Madness, by what nickname is the NCAA basketball tournament best known?
The Big Dance
The Big Dance gets bigger in 2027, when the field expands from 68 teams to 76.
Q 04What are teams on the edge of making the NCAA tournament field said to be on?
The bubble
The bubble is such a fixture that the selection committee now weighs a metric called Wins Above Bubble, which measures a team against an average bubble team's results.
Q 05What do players and coaches traditionally do after winning the NCAA championship game?
Cut down the nets
Cut down the nets: coach Everett Case is credited with bringing the ritual to college basketball in 1947, when his players hoisted him up to snip one as a souvenir of a conference title.
Q 06Which round of the NCAA tournament is made up of the regional semifinals?
Sweet Sixteen
Sweet Sixteen: the name is not the NCAA's own, since Kentucky's high school athletic association registered the trademark in 1988 and licenses it to the NCAA.
Q 07Which of these first-round upsets happens most often in the NCAA men's tournament?
No. 12 over No. 5
No. 12 over No. 5 came up in more than a third of their meetings from 1985 through 2026, while a No. 16 seed has beaten a No. 1 only twice.
Q 08How many regions make up the NCAA Tournament bracket?
4
The bracket has 4 regions of 16 seeded teams each, and each region sends one champion on, which is why the national semifinals are called the Final Four.
Q 09In NCAA tournament slang, what is a low seed that makes a surprising deep run called?
Cinderella
Cinderella fits teams like No. 15 seed Florida Gulf Coast, which won twice in 2013; when such a run finally ends, the clock is said to strike midnight.
Q 10Which legendary Bruins coach won 10 national championships in 12 seasons, including seven in a row?
John Wooden
John Wooden won 10 NCAA titles in his last 12 seasons at UCLA, seven of them in a row from 1967 to 1973; the streak finally ended with a loss in the 1974 national semifinal.
Q 11Which future NBA MVP was Memphis's freshman point guard in its overtime loss in the 2008 NCAA final?
Derrick Rose
Derrick Rose missed one of two free throws with 10 seconds left, leaving Memphis only three ahead; a year later the NCAA vacated the team's whole season after his SAT score was invalidated.
Q 12In what year was the first NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament held?
1939
The first NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament was held in 1939, with just eight teams. Oregon defeated Ohio State 46-33 to win the inaugural championship.
Q 13From 2011 through 2026, what were the NCAA men's tournament's opening games, played before the round of 64, called?
First Four
Q 21By what two-word name is Duke's 1992 buzzer-beater against Kentucky commonly known?
The Shot
"The Shot" beat Kentucky 104–103 in overtime in the 1992 East Regional final; the same Duke player had also sunk UConn at the buzzer in the 1990 regional final.
Q 22Who hit the buzzer-beating three-pointer that won the 2016 national championship game 77–74?
Kris Jenkins
Kris Jenkins buried the three at the buzzer off Ryan Arcidiacono's pass to beat North Carolina 77–74 for Villanova; Arcidiacono was named Most Outstanding Player.
Q 23Which No. 6 seed stunned Houston's "Phi Slama Jama" on a last-second dunk in the 1983 NCAA title game?
NC State
First Four games paired the last four at-large teams and the four lowest-seeded automatic qualifiers; in 2021 UCLA went from one of them all the way to the Final Four.
Q 14Which city hosted the NCAA men's tournament's play-in games nearly every year from 2001 through 2026?
Dayton
Dayton's UD Arena staged the play-in games from 2001; only in 2021, when the pandemic moved them, were they played elsewhere, and from 2027 it shares an enlarged opening round with a second city.
Q 15In March Madness slang, what is a "bracket buster"?
A lower seed that upsets a favorite
A lower seed that upsets a favorite wrecks every bracket that had the favorite advancing; Northern Iowa's 2010 win over top overall seed Kansas is a classic case.
Q 16Duke students camp for weeks in a tent city outside which arena to claim seats for big games?
Cameron Indoor Stadium
Cameron Indoor Stadium's tent city fills before the archrival Tar Heels visit, and a tent that misses two of the surprise attendance checks is sent to the back of the line.
Q 17Which CBS analyst is known for shouting 'Onions!' when a clutch shot falls late in a close game?
Bill Raftery
Bill Raftery is also remembered for a 1988 call, 'Send it in, Jerome!', shouted as Pitt's Jerome Lane shattered a backboard with a dunk and held up the game for more than half an hour.
Q 18What is the term for the round of 8 teams remaining in the NCAA Tournament?
Elite Eight
The Elite Eight is the quarterfinal round of the NCAA Tournament, when only eight teams remain. The winners of the Elite Eight advance to the Final Four.
Q 19In 2018, which No. 16 seed became the first to defeat a No. 1 seed in the NCAA Tournament?
UMBC
UMBC's Retrievers were tied 21–21 at halftime, then routed the overall No. 1 seed 74–54 for the first No. 16 win since the field grew to 64 teams.
Q 20Which school won the national title the year after becoming the first No. 1 seed to lose to a No. 16?
Virginia
Virginia won the 2019 final in overtime, 85–77 over Texas Tech, after Kyle Guy's three free throws with 0.6 seconds left had won the semifinal against Auburn by a single point.
NC State's Lorenzo Charles dunked Dereck Whittenburg's desperation heave for a 54–52 win, and the Wolfpack coach's frantic search for someone to hug became an iconic image.
Q 24Who was the 98-year-old team chaplain who became an icon during Loyola-Chicago's 2018 run?
Sister Jean
Sister Jean Dolores Schmidt gave the Ramblers more than prayers: she also passed on her own scouting reports as 11th-seeded Loyola-Chicago reached the 2018 Final Four.
Q 25Which No. 15 seed was the first ever to reach the Elite Eight, in 2022?
Saint Peter's
Saint Peter's, the Peacocks from Jersey City, beat Kentucky, Murray State and Purdue before losing to North Carolina.
Q 26Which No. 16 seed became the second ever to knock out a No. 1 seed, in 2023?
Fairleigh Dickinson
Fairleigh Dickinson beat the East's top seed 63–58 after losing its own league final: it was in the field only because the winner, Merrimack, was ineligible.
Q 27Which team ended a 38–0 opponent's perfect season, then lost the 2015 final to Duke, the Blue Devils' fifth title?
Wisconsin
Wisconsin lost 68–63 to a Duke team that had also beaten it 80–70 earlier that season; Tyus Jones was named the Final Four's Most Outstanding Player.
Q 28Which No. 8 seed shot 78.6% to upset Georgetown in 'The Perfect Game' title game?
Villanova
Villanova made 22 of 28 shots, including 9 of 10 after halftime, to beat defending champion Georgetown 66–64 in 1985; through 2025 no lower seed had won the title.
Q 29Which coach's 1976 team went 32–0, the last men's champion through 2025 to finish unbeaten?
Bob Knight
Bob Knight's Hoosiers ran the table a year after his unbeaten 1975 team lost a regional final by two points with star Scott May limited by a broken arm.
Q 30Through 2025, which program had made the most Final Four appearances in NCAA tournament history?
North Carolina
North Carolina had reached 21 Final Fours through 2025; the 21st came in 2022, when the Tar Heels beat archrival Duke 81–77 in the national semifinal.