Special Event: March Madness! NCAA basketball tournaments 2025!

March 16, 2025 5:49 AM

March, March, how is it March again? UConn is the defending 2024 Men's Champion, and South Carolina is the defending 2024 Women's Champion.

Women's Schedule:

https://www.ncaa.com/news/basketball-women/article/2025-03-16/2025-march-madness-womens-ncaa-tournament-schedule-dates-times

Women's bracket challenge:
https://fantasy.espn.com/tc/sharer?challengeId=258&from=espn&context=GROUP_INVITE&edition=espn-en&groupId=f7bf3a11-eff7-4af7-9a24-6d1d88276626&joinKey=8855c0dc-beb2-3a18-8e9d-85e5ffbfa162 (group name is Metafilter 2025, password is BlueBeans), brackets lock Friday, 3/21

Men's schedule:

https://www.ncaa.com/news/basketball-men/article/2025-03-16/2025-march-madness-mens-ncaa-tournament-schedule-dates

Men's bracket challenge:
https://fantasy.espn.com/tc/sharer?challengeId=257&from=espn&context=GROUP_INVITE&edition=espn-en&groupId=ec85118e-f0be-487d-9756-e47ae3ce4b35&joinKey=8855c0dc-beb2-3a18-8e9d-85e5ffbfa162 (group name is Metafilter 2025, password is BlueBeans), brackets lock Thursday, 3/20

It's set so folks can make up to 25 brackets so play early and play often.

posted by joycehealy (20 comments total)

Ah! I was just looking on Metatalk for this. :) I am Andy Mok and I am also prepared to finish last, again!
posted by Literaryhero at 4:45 PM on March 16 [2 favorites]

Thanks for reminding me I should post to metatalk!
posted by joycehealy at 5:59 PM on March 16

I have not lived in the US in a long time, and I find it astonishing how inundated ESPN is with gambling ads now. Wow.
posted by Literaryhero at 10:48 PM on March 17

Thank you for posting this! Excited to have my bracket busted in the first day of games :)
posted by Carillon at 11:58 PM on March 17 [3 favorites]

I like that they have an "all chalk" button. Of course I had to pick some favorite teams to win against the odds.

Also excited for a day one busted bracket!
posted by ob1quixote at 1:23 PM on March 18 [2 favorites]

I mean, looking at this field... everyone is going to bust day 1, lol.
posted by joycehealy at 4:01 AM on March 19

My alma mater self-destructed before the season started, so I'm falling back to my default position of rooting for chaos.

Ceterum censeo Duke delenda est.
posted by LionIndex at 11:32 AM on March 19 [2 favorites]

Against every fiber of my moral being, I chose the evil empire (Duke) to win in one of my men’s brackets, but then I will enjoy being wrong all the more.

Most of my actual energy and viewing time will be on the women’s tourney, where I would love to see S Carolina come thru but will enjoy watching them all. Thanks so much for setting this up, joycehealy!
posted by donnagirl at 12:17 PM on March 20 [2 favorites]

No problem! I’m not around a whole lot these days because life, but I am always here for March.
posted by joycehealy at 1:39 PM on March 20 [1 favorite]

McNeese just busted allllll the brackets lol.
posted by joycehealy at 2:46 PM on March 20

McNeese’s coach showed exactly the exuberant joy that brings me to the Madness every year.
posted by donnagirl at 4:21 PM on March 20 [1 favorite]

He's NC State's coach next year, so he knows he gets to play Clemson every year forever. I'd be happy too.

Look for the announcement any day now that Ryan Odom, the coach for VCU, will be taking the job at UVa (my imploding alma mater). Odom is famous for being the coach at UMBC when they were the first 16 seed to beat a 1 seed back in 2018 when they beat ... UVa.
posted by LionIndex at 4:25 PM on March 20 [1 favorite]

I am an NCSU alum and missed that we’d already rehired. Damn.
posted by joycehealy at 6:28 PM on March 20

Also, today in “how North Carolina are we”: we just watched the end of the Drake/Mizzou game in a Waffle House.
posted by joycehealy at 7:18 PM on March 20 [4 favorites]

Men's tournament is as chalky as any I can remember so far - the only real surprise for me was McNeese beating Clemson, but 12-5 upsets have been fairly common and in the other one this year Colorado State was actually favored over Memphis (who had an injury to a key player). And McNeese is getting destroyed by Purdue as I type this, so they're probably not going to be a Cinderella. No 13-16 seed winners which feels unusual after the last few years.

Maybe the most surprising thing to me was how a couple of the 8-9 games went, being total blowouts instead of the fairly even games they should be, so maybe there'll be some second round craziness with one of those knocking out a 1 seed early. I'd be a little scared if I were Auburn or Houston.
posted by LionIndex at 10:44 AM on March 22

I had Texas A&M going all the way, so even though I'm at the top of the leaderboard now I will end up at the bottom. And my women's bracket is in shambles as well. I actually don't follow basketball at all, but I do like picking based on whatever criteria for the tourney. Next year I might do better. :)
posted by Literaryhero at 9:07 PM on March 22 [2 favorites]

The 4/5 matches in the women’s tournament today have been intense. Happy to see my alma mater prevail, but now we face USC so 🤷🏻‍♀️
posted by donnagirl at 3:44 PM on March 23 [1 favorite]

I like how "USC" is a little ambiguous there, but either definition is gonna be rough.
posted by LionIndex at 10:54 AM on March 24 [1 favorite]

Wow, I am terrible at this.
posted by Literaryhero at 8:37 PM on April 2

Woop Woop! My women's bracket was looking dicey there for a while, but my faith in UConn prevailed!
posted by ikahime at 2:24 PM on April 6 [3 favorites]