Bracketology: March Madness, College Basketball, and the Creation of a National Obsession

By Joe Lunardi, David Smale and Mark Few

Lunardi delves into the early days of Bracketology, details its growth, and dispels the myths of the process

The NCAA Tournament has become one of the most popular sports events in the country, consuming fans for weeks with the run to the Final Four and ultimately the crowning of the champion of college hoops.? Each March, millions of Americans fill out their bracket in the hopes of correctly predicting the future.

Yet, there is no true Madness without the oft-debated question about what teams should be seeded where—from the Power-5 Blue Blood with some early season stumbles on their resume to the mid-major that rampaged through their less competitive conference season—and the inventor of Bracketology himself, Joe Lunardi, now reveals the mystery and science behind the legend.

While going in depth on his ever-evolving predictive formula, Lunardi compares great teams from different eras with intriguing results, talks to the biggest names in college basketball about their perception of Bracketology (both good and bad), and looks ahead to the future of the sport and how Bracketology will help shape the conversation.

This fascinating book is a must-read for college hoops fans and anyone who has aspired to win their yearly office pool.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Independent Publishers Group
• Release date: Mar 2, 2021
• ISBN: 9781641255806

Book preview

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To Don DiJulia, the MVP—Most Valuable Person—of my alma mater and basketball career. Everyone who knows him, knows why.

Contents

Foreword by Mark Few

Introduction by David Smale

1. The Greatest Tournament of All

2. The Birth of Bracketology

3. ESPN and College Basketball

4. More Than a Hobby

5. The Not-So-Secret Formula

6. Debunking the Myths

7. A Language All Its Own

8. Joey Brackets

9. Bracketology: The Insiders’ Take

10. My Crystal Ball

Acknowledgments

Photo Gallery

Foreword by Mark Few

I’ve spoken with Joe Lunardi on enough occasions to know that his breadth of knowledge of every detail of every team that should be considered going into the NCAA Tournament is beyond reproach. He’s relentless.

Coaches in general are relentless, whether it be in recruiting, scouting, preparation, or development. We throw all our energy and resources into trying to be successful, so I admire that trait in Joe. It’s impressive and inspiring just how hard Joe works and how diligent he is. He does a new bracket for the following year immediately after the season is over. He constantly updates it in the spring and summer. Obviously, it’s purely speculative, but I’m always impressed with just how accurate he is, whether that’s seeding numbers or the teams that are chosen. He ends up nailing it.

Beyond correctly predicting who is going to get into that year’s tournament, Joe’s resources are very valuable to coaches because scheduling is such an important part of our job. Scheduling is tucked neatly behind recruiting in importance to being successful in your job as a coach. I think it would be amazing to research how many coaches look at his work and use it in regard to scheduling. He has become an extremely valuable resource.

I was an assistant at Gonzaga with Dan Monson. When he took over the head job in 1997, he changed how we scheduled at Gonzaga. We went out and aggressively tried to schedule the best opponents we could for our own experiences within the program. We felt like it would be fun for our players to play against the best teams. It also helped us grow the program.

We needed to analyze the best ways to schedule to put ourselves in the position to get strong consideration for an at-large bid. I don’t think the Bracketology aspect really took hold for us until the early 2000s—long after we reached the Elite Eight in 1999 and then backed it up with two Sweet 16s in the next two years. By then I felt like we had put ourselves in that position. We were already using those types of principles, but we had no numbers to back it up. We were doing it by feel, knowing college basketball and knowing who was going to be good.

Joe put a science to it. He knows details like: That team had a tough loss, but their point guard couldn’t play that day, or This situation reminds me of the 2012 bracket. His recollection of all the incidences over the years is remarkable. He’s a true historian of the NCAA Tournament and the selection process. If you love college basketball like I do, you’ll love reading about how Bracketology came to be and how it has become such an integral part of our game.

—Mark Few

Gonzaga University men’s basketball head coach

Introduction by David Smale

Much like I had been for the past dozen or so years, I was assigned to write a couple of articles for the official program of the 2019 Final Four. One of the assignments was to write about the creation and development of Bracketology, the art of predicting the field for the NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship. As a college hoops nerd, I thought it might be fun to learn about the history of this sports phenomenon.

I had no idea.

The NCAA and its communications partner, IMG ­College, suggested that I reach out to Joe Lunardi, the guy who created it. I’d seen him on TV for the past several seasons, and he seemed like a nice enough guy. But you never know if his TV personality is anything like his real personality.

I found him to be funny in a self-deprecating way, articulate, confident, and humble at the same time. When we finished up our hour-long interview—about four times longer than I usually spent with an interview—I told him that I appreciated his humor and his humility. He responded, Can you call my wife and tell her that?

For the next couple of weeks, I kept mulling over the idea of approaching Joe with the idea of writing a book about the subject. It scared me a little because if it took an hour for me to interview him for a 1,500-word story, how long would it take to do the interviews for a book? But mostly, I thought about the fact that he was a national personality and I was, well, just me.

I finally had the courage to approach him with another idea related, yet unrelated, to the Final Four story, and he seemed interested. When we talked again, I said, Have you ever considered writing a book about Bracketology?

He said, Yeah, I’ve been approached quite a few times. I asked him who had written it with him, and he said, No one. I’ve never done it. I don’t think anyone would care enough about the story to buy a book.

Challenge accepted.

I spent the next few months trying to convince him that it could be a big seller. Joe told his wife that another guy had approached him about a book on his baby, and this time he was intrigued. Her reply was classic: Isn’t that more like a pamphlet?

Joe’s agent, Maury Gostfrand, was in my corner, and we finally convinced Joe to try it. He and I spent the next few months working on the project, doing so almost exclusively remotely, and we finished it during the 2020 pandemic. With the help of Triumph Books, I think we’ve got a winner. My wife, Tammy, and Joe’s wife, Pam, will wait to see how many copies we sell, but as Joe’s dad used to tell him, Behind every successful man is a surprised woman.

I’m thrilled with how this book turned out and I’ve become very good friends with Joe through the process. And if you enjoy reading it half as much as I enjoyed helping him put it together, it will hold a valuable space on your bookcase for years to come.

—David Smale

1. The Greatest Tournament of All

The UCLA dynasty under John Wooden is overrated. It’s not the greatest accomplishment in college basketball history. There, I said it. Bracketology can make you crazy that way.

Of course, seven straight NCAA titles—and 10 in a 12-year span—is a remarkable streak. But it needs context. Having to win only four games for all but one of their championships—two victories coming in the weakest region of a much smaller tournament field—made what the Bruins achieved considerably easier than it would be today.

Until Wooden’s last title in 1975, which was a five-game journey, UCLA had a much easier road through the tournament than our current champions do. The Bruins never had to face teams from the ACC, the SEC, the Big Ten, or any of the storied independents, such as Notre Dame, until the very last game. Final Four matchups paired West versus Midwest until 1973. And there simply were fewer schools, particularly high-level basketball schools, west of the Mississippi.

Occasionally the Big Eight or the old Southwest ­Conference would have strong representatives, but the caliber and depth of play in those conferences wasn’t as consistently good as that of the ACC or other leagues in the eastern time zone. In its run of championships between 1964 and 1975, UCLA often had a cakewalk to the Final Four. It’s no coincidence that the only time the Bruins were bracketed against an ACC team prior to the title game, they lost to North Carolina State in the 1974 semifinals. The Bruins may have been on another planet in terms of talent, but often during their championship run, that talent was untested.

Obviously, those UCLA teams were great. If you’re starting Lew Alcindor (later Kareem Abdul-Jabbar) or Bill Walton at center six times in an eight-year period, you’re going to win a lot. But having to win six games in a deeper, balanced NCAA field—with the geographic wealth and dozens of quality at-large teams spread equally—is much harder than any path the Bruins faced during their glory years.

For a No. 1 seed today, even conceding a walk-over in the first round against a No. 16 seed—apologies to the University of Maryland, Baltimore County—a national championship typically requires a team to win at least four or five big-time games. For most of UCLA’s run, the Bruins were getting by with only two or sometimes three high-level opponents. To the bracketologically-inclined, those things matter.

During the nine-year span of 1986 to 1994, Duke advanced to the Final Four seven times. From my seat and comparing the respective wins required, each of those appearances in the national semifinals is roughly equivalent to one of UCLA’s national championships in the late 1960s and early 1970s. I’m not downplaying UCLA’s run. I’m just saying it’s not alone as an all-time achievement in the sport. Reaching a Final Four in today’s expanded bracket—and the steadily increasing number of at-large bids makes the field way stronger—is far more impressive than you think.

The flip side is the level of talent overall, as well as its age and distribution. With Alcindor, Walton, Walt ­Hazzard, Gail Goodrich, Sidney Wicks, Curtis Rowe, and many ­others, UCLA was fantastic, assembling star-studded rosters seemingly without restriction and keeping them together year after year. Wooden’s teams were much better than the top programs today—even if what they accomplished needs reframing.

Duke had the potential to be a generationally great team in 2018–19. Freshmen Zion Williamson, RJ Barrett, and Cam Reddish all were taken in the first 10 picks of the ensuing NBA draft. Yet the Blue Devils lost in the Elite Eight to Michigan State. And even had they cut down the nets, I would not compare them favorably to the best of the UCLA dynasty. Williamson as a freshman simply couldn’t match Alcindor or Walton as upperclassmen. Since neither ­Alcindor nor Walton were permitted to play as freshmen, there’s no way to make a completely fair comparison. Yet even as we lean toward favoring UCLA’s rosters in their run of titles, I maintain it is much harder to win an NCAA championship today.

Let’s not forget how the tournament has evolved through the years, marking what I call the modern era with the advent of the 64-team bracket in 1985. We’ve been at the current 68-team composition since 2011, but that is a far cry from how the tourney looked at its founding.

From the first year of the championship in 1939 through 1950, there were only eight teams included. In 1951 and 1952, there were 16 teams, as college basketball grew in popularity. From 1953 through 1968, the field ranged from 22 to 25 teams, and seven to 10 byes were factored in each year. From 1969 to 1974, the field was fixed at 25 teams with seven byes, and UCLA never failed to receive one. The years 1975–1978 brought the onset of at-large bids—credit Maryland and Lefty Driesell, among others—with 32 teams invited and no byes. In 1979 the field expanded to 40 teams with 24 byes and still more at-large invites. The team tally trended upward in the early 1980s from 48 to 52 to 53 teams. The powers that be sought the right balance between automatic qualifiers and at-large participants.

The bracket gymnastics came to an end in 1985 when the field fully expanded to an aesthetically perfect 64 teams (no byes). Even with minor expansion to 65 teams from 2001 to 2010, featuring a single opening-round game, and to 68 in 2011 with the new look First Four, the tournament really gets going in the eyes of the public when the main bracket of 64 is set. Those who lose in the opening round still get to count those games as tournament appearances, but for the millions and millions of people filling out brackets, noon eastern of the middle Thursday of March is the true tipoff of the madness. And it must be purely coincidental just how many fans come down with a case of the sniffles at exactly that moment.

Besides the fewer number of teams in the field, why was it easier to win the NCAA title four or five decades ago? From its founding and through most of the next 45 years, the tournament was configured geographically. Teams in the western part of the U.S. were placed in the West Region. Teams from the Midwest were placed in the Midwest Region and so on. The nation’s population dictated more schools and commensurate deserving teams being closer to the East Coast than there were in the western U.S.

For example, the one-time ECAC (East Coast Athletic Conference) wasn’t a conference in today’s terms. But as a critical scheduling alliance, including many high-profile members, the NCAA had to take it seriously. Forerunners to the current Men’s Basketball Committee might have said, We’d better take the team that has the best record in each of the ECAC divisions. The ones just on the wrong side of the not-yet-named bubble were invited to the still-highly regarded National Invitation Tournament (NIT).

For a generation or more, the West Region was considered the weakest. Look at some of UCLA’s first-round opponents from 1964 through 1975: Seattle, Wyoming, New Mexico State, Long Beach State, Weber State. Which of those scare you? The Bruins’ 10 title teams won these ­contests by an average of more than 20 points per game.

Interestingly, UCLA didn’t make the NCAA ­Tournament in 1966 because only one team from a conference could participate, and the Bruins finished second to Oregon State in what was then known as the Pac-8. Of course, had freshmen been eligible that year, UCLA might very well have won 10 straight national championships. The freshman team at UCLA in 1966 included Alcindor, Lucius Allen, and Kenny Heitz, who would become crucial members of a championship nucleus beginning in 1967. In fact, those freshmen beat Wooden’s varsity by 15 points—the two-time defending NCAA champions and preseason No. 1, mind you—in the first game ever played in Pauley Pavilion. But that’s a story for a different book. A geography book, perhaps.

These days, the public pays almost as much attention to where a team is seeded, and where it plays, as to whether it’s in or out of the field. Teams on the bubble probably look for their names first, but fans of most of the other teams search for their seed line and then compare themselves to other teams on that same line.

Speaking from experience and with an eye toward social media—something Wooden never had to think about—I get far more complaints about where I have a team seeded than about who I include or exclude. How can you (fill-in-the-derogatory) make us a (fill-in-the-blank) seed? Don’t you watch TV? We’ve beaten two teams you have seeded ahead of us. The drumbeat of these and many other suggestions is never-ending, and I love it.

Prior to 1979 there was no seeding. Teams generally were placed in the region that most corresponded to their part of the country. The NCAA Men’s Basketball Committee—­commonly referred to as the Selection Committee—tried to match up teams in an economical way that made geographic sense. The notion of UCLA being a No. 1 seed and playing a No. 16 seed such as Florida International, an actual matchup for UCLA’s 1995 title team, never would have happened in the Wooden era.

The pre-seeding era also had to contend with what has become a dinosaur in college sports: the major independent. There may have been a system in selecting said teams, but if your vision is one of good ol’ boys making it up as they go along, you wouldn’t be far from the truth. Not much was written down in terms of process, and there was little scrutiny of the outcomes.

There was plenty of tradition and plenty of room in the field for independents such as Marquette, DePaul, Notre Dame, and Villanova. Marquette won a national championship for Al McGuire in 1977, and Villanova lost to UCLA in the 1971 title game—both as independents. But the eventual anointing of at-large teams would make conference membership a must.

Similarly, the old way of selecting tournament participants was destined for failure. It may have met its demise with the 1974 ACC Tournament. The championship game pitted North Carolina State led by David Thompson, Tom Burleson, and a 5’7" point guard named Monte Towe against Maryland, featuring Tom McMillen, Len Elmore, and John Lucas. All of those players had NBA careers. Many have called that the greatest college basketball game ever played.

N.C. State won 103–100 in overtime. With the victory N.C. State went to the NCAA Tournament and ultimately ended UCLA’s championship streak in the national semifinals. UCLA would come back and win one last title for Wooden in 1975, but the Wolfpack stopped the Bruins and Bill Walton with that dramatic 80–77 victory in double-overtime.

Many insist Maryland was the second best team in the country that year. It only lost five times. The Terrapins lost to UCLA in Los Angeles in the season opener.