College basketball fans are locking in their brackets for the 2025 NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament, which fully kicks off on Thursday. Through six rounds of the tournament, 64 teams will whittle down to the Sweet 16, Elite Eight, Final Four and the champs. Here’s what last year’s March Madness results looked like.
Full results for the 2024 March Madness bracket
In 2024, University of Connecticut and Purdue University went head to head in the NCAA men’s basketball championship after defeating Alabama and North Carolina State, respectively, in the Final Four.
UConn beat Purdue 75-60, picking up its sixth national title. Connecticut’s women’s team has won the championship a whopping 11 times.
After winning two years in a row, the UConn men’s team is going for a three-peat this year. But what are the odds?
March Madness predictions
UConn is seeded eight this season and has a potential second-round game against Florida – the No. 1 seed. So, the Huskies have a tough path to the Final Four.
According to CBS Sports, the odds of filling out a perfect bracket are 1 in 9.22 quintillion. To put things in perspective, the closest anyone has ever gotten to a perfect bracket was in 2019 when an Ohio man correctly predicted 49 out of 63 games, according to the NCAA. He made it through the Sweet 16 before losing his streak.
Even using data and algorithms can’t fully predict the frequent upsets during the tournament. SportsLine, a sports betting site, runs simulations of every game in the tournament 10,000 times. Teams that win more than 50% of these simulated games become SportsLine bracket picks.
The method has proven to be quite successful – according to the company, their brackets faired better than 91% of CBS Sports brackets for the past six years. But while the company correctly predicted 13 of the Sweet 16 teams last year – and UConn’s win – getting a perfect bracket is still yet to be achieved.
CBS Sports analysts and reporters lent their expertise and shared their predictions – four people picked Duke as the winner, two picked Florida, two picked Houston and one picked Auburn. Sports betting site Fanduel Sportsbook also has high odds for these four teams to make it into the final four.
Average score of a March Madness final
Most brackets ask participants to not only fill out which teams they think will advance through the tournament but also try to predict the combined final score. Since 2010, the average combine score for NCAA finals is 135.7, according to CBS Sports.
The highest scoring game in this time frame was in 2019 when Virginia defeated Texas Tech in overtime. The final score was 85-77 – a total of 162 points. The lowest score during this time period was in 2011 when UConn beat Butler 53-41 – a combined score of just 94 points.
How to watch the 2025 March Madness tournament live
The first games tip off today – Louisville playing Creighton at 12:15 p.m. and Purdue facing High Point at 12:40 p.m. There are 16 games in the first round airing today and 16 airing on Friday.
You can watch the games on CBS and if you’ve cut the cord, Paramount+ allows subscribers to stream all games airing on CBS. Other channels that will be carrying the games: TBS, TNT and truTV.
Hulu + Live TV and YouTube TV allow you to stream all four networks covering the tournament. For the full schedule and information on where the games are being played and who the announcers will be you can visit CBS Sports.
The NCAA men’s college basketball final game will be played on Monday, April 7 at 8:50 at the Alamodome in San Antonio and will air on CBS.
Caitlin O’KaneCaitlin O’Kane is a New York City journalist who works on the CBS News social media team as a senior manager of content and production. She writes about a variety of topics and produces “The Uplift,” CBS News’ streaming show that focuses on good news.
