Four separate regional brackets are configured when the tournament field is announced. All games are played at neutral sites and each regional winner makes it to the Final Four. The regional champs meet on the final Saturday of the tourney and them March Madness is concluded when the winners face off in the championship game.

The championship tournament began in 1939 and later became known as March Madness and the March Madness 'Final Four'.

The term "March Madness" is credited with first being used by H. V. Porter, an official of the Illinois High School Assoc, who wrote an essay called March Madness in 1939. By the 1980s, the term became associated with the NCAA Basketball tourney.

The tournament (A.K.A. "March Madness") initially began with just eight teams and emerged to 40 in 1979. By 1985 the March Madness field was expanded to 64 teams and then in 2001, a play-in game increased the field to its current 65 teams. Recently, the March Madness Tournament field was expanded to 68 teams.

"Cutting down the nets." This popular March Madness tradition takes place at the end of the regional championships and then the national championship game.

Office pools are very popular as fans try to select the winning teams in each March Madness bracket en route to the Final Four and NCAA Basketball Championship game.