“It’s a great day to be a Gator,” said CBS play-by-play announcer Ian Eagle moments after the Florida Gators won the 2025 men’s March Madness tournament, beating the Houston Cougars 65-63.
While it may have been a “great day” for the University of Florida, many college basketball fans throughout the nation were thinking otherwise. This 2025 tournament saw the lowest number of upsets seen throughout the entire 2020s. In addition, this was the first tournament in which all four top-ranked teams in the country made the final four since 2008.
With this one seed-heavy season, debates flaring about the future of the tournament. Due to the transfer portal and NIL (name, image, and likeness) deals, players are given large amounts of money to go to big-name schools that have more funding and a bigger budget.
The NIL and transfer portal “will lead to fewer and fewer higher seeds [10-16 seeds] making an unexpected run, or Cinderella stories,” says basketball superfan Marco Rogers (‘26).
One of the main reasons March Madness is so popular is the ultimate dream of being the one fan to have a perfect bracket, predicting all 63 tournament game outcomes correctly. According to the NCAA, a person has a 1 in 9.2 quintillion chance of completing a perfect bracket. Since the tournament started in 1939, no one has ever completed the impossible and created a perfect bracket. With the new trends of this year’s tournament, some believe the chances of making history are increasing.
“[The NIL deals] move talent to the top and decrease the amount of upsets, which may eventually lead to the perfect bracket,” says fellow basketball superfan Calvin Williams (‘26)
The Skyline Post Bracket Challenge has finished, and a winner has been crowned. The champion, Jaeyul Han (‘28) picked all the Elite Eight teams correctly and both Florida and Houston to face off in the championship game, but it may not have been all skill that went into his 99.7 percentile bracket.
“I hadn’t watched any college basketball before the tournament started, so it was interesting to see my picks being correct. [This helped] make me watch some quite entertaining games,” said Han.
This year ran quite low on upsets compared to other years. High-seeded teams like VCU, UNC, and Yale that were “destined” to make a Cinderella run fell in just the first round. So-called “college basketball experts” like Big Ten Network’s Andy Katz or ESPN’s Dave Leno were sweating out how many and which upsets to take. Han didn’t listen to the experts and instead formed his bracket with his own research.
“I guess I didn’t choose many upsets due to me not really knowing basketball and just choosing by looking at the season stats, which paid off in the end,” said Han.
The Gators stood atop the mountain this season, only dropping 4 games out of 40 on their way to the summit. They averaged 84.8 points and 39.1 rebounds per game, which was 5th and 3rd overall in the country, respectively. These impressive stats may have had an influence on many fans, including Han.
“Florida was a favorite from the tournament, as I heard from many of my friends, which made me choose it,” says Han.
Some super fans had high hopes for their teams this season, such as local favorite Michigan State. The Spartans finished first in the Big Ten standings and made an Elite Eight run, a very solid year for their historic program.
“They exceeded expectations,” says Skyline staff member and avid Michigan State fan Kimberly Dean. “They played their hearts out.”
Michigan State spotted Auburn a 17-point lead at one point in their duel in the tournament, but cut that score gap down significantly in the second half.
“If it started 0-0 at the start of the second half, they would have come out on top,” says Dean. “But that’s the beauty of March Madness – that’s why we call it March Madness.”
