NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament

NCAA Basketball March Madness Bracket

Click here to download the basketball bracket. When prompted, choose to save this file to your computer (the desktop is fine).
- Microsoft Excel is needed in order to use this program. It works best when macros are enabled; Click here to learn about the macros.
- If you cannot use macros (because of security settings or personal preference): You will not be able to one-click to advance teams, but the bracket is still very easy to complete. Many thanks to Tom Szarek for developing the macroless capabilities.
You will find instructions on the first tab for filling out the bracket (it just involves clicking). The basketball bracket is on the second tab.
Once done, save the file and submit it to your pool manager.
Note: This has been extensively tested using Excel 2002 (part of MS Office XP) and Excel 2007 on Windows XP and Vista platforms. You may see errors if you use this file on a different Excel/Windows version or on a Macintosh computer, but these should not cause any damage to your computer. Please feel free to email me about any bugs; if they're easy to fix, I'll make the changes and post a new version of the file.

For Pool Managers

If you are managing a basketball pool of friends' NCAA brackets, or you know someone who is, please feel free to download the NCAA Basketball Pool Manager file below. This is used in conjunction with the basketball bracket file above and automatically tabulates results, highlights winners in brackets, and crosses out losing games. It allows scenario generation and modifying of point totals for each round (since each person prefers his/her own point total weighting, it allows for some customization). This requires Microsoft Excel and macros must be enabled.

Click here to download the NCAA basketball bracket pool manager file. This is free code. Please share with others, make your own improvements, or offer suggestions for future upgrades. Please let me know how the program has worked for you - I'd love to hear your stories.

Update: Lots of new changes for 2009! Click here to view some of this year's improvements.
»If for some reason you cannot get the above file to work, you can also download last year's pool manager file. It has the 2009 teams loaded, and it should work, even with the updated brackets. I haven't tested it at all, but I figured I'd make it available just in case you found issues with the new pool manager file.

About the research

I am a Ph.D. candidate (in Sport Management) at the University of Massachusetts. For the past few years, I have been researching how people fill out NCAA tournament brackets (aka "March Madness brackets"). I am not collecting research data this year, but I wanted to share the Excel files with those who use them each year.

Enjoy!

I hope that you enjoy watching the tournament and that these Excel basketball bracket files somehow contribute to your fun. ~B. David Tyler

While I understand that some people choose to gamble on the NCAA tournament results, the project is not meant to either endorse or enable gambling. I share this as a way for you to brag to peers about your superior basketball clairvoyance. Please note that this research is not supported by or in any way tied to the NCAA.