In the United States, college basketball attracts thousands of people into the halls every year, and students are sometimes celebrated like stars. The NCAA, the best known association in university sports, is not without reason a springboard for the NBA or NFL. SPOX gives you some insight into college basketball.
Like other popular sports in the USA, basketball is organised in a completely different structure than in Germany, for example. While in Germany, lower professional leagues and regional and amateur leagues play a role, in the United States everything runs through the country’s schools.
Sport is primarily practiced in high schools and colleges. If a young person wants to become a professional athlete, his career path is inevitably guided by the respective team of his or her school. There the prospective competitive athletes are intensively supported. Scholarships for colleges are highly sought-after, as studying in the USA is anything but cheap.
Basketball at universities is controlled by a large number of associations. These include, among others:
Each of these organisations is subdivided into different regional divisions, to which numerous leagues are subordinate. The NCAA is the most important association.
The NCAA is officially a non-profit organization with more than 450,000 college athletes in various sports.
The association has three divisions in basketball, which are organised according to the quantity and quality of the scholarships awarded. NCAA’s Division I represents the highest quality and is marketed accordingly. In the current season, a total of 351 schools are taking part in this division in 32 conferences, in a way their own leagues.
The winners of the 32 Conferences take part in the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament each spring with 36 other invited teams. This tournament is better known as March Madness. In it, the US-American Division I champion is determined, who can also feel like a national champion in college basketball.
The March Madness attracts a lot of attention in the USA, year after year fans try to predict the winner of the tournament. In contrast to the playoffs in the NBA, for example, the teams don’t play against each other in a best-of-seven series, but only one knockout match.
This increases the likelihood of underdogs advancing further than expected, contributing to the tournament’s popularity. However, it is impossible for teams (except for a few exceptions) to play a match in their own school. The March Madness is divided into seven rounds:
1964,1965,1967,1968,1969,1970,1971,1972,1973,1975,1995
1948,1949,1951,1958,1978,1996,1998,2012
1957,1982,1993,2005,2009,2017
1991,1992,2001,2010,2015
1940,1953,1976,1981,1987
1999,2004,2011,2014
1952,1988,2008
1980,1986,2013
1961,1962
2006,2007
1979,2000
1974,1983
1945,1946
1955,1956
1985,2016