Bracketology

Bracketology is the process of predicting the field of the NCAA Basketball Tournament, named as such because it is commonly used to fill in tournament brackets for the postseason. It incorporates some method of predicting what the NCAA Selection Committee will use as its Ratings Percentage Index in order to determine at-large (non-conference winning) teams to complete the field of 68 teams, and, to seed the field by ranking all teams from first through sixty-eighth. ESPN’s Joe Lunardi is the inventor of the term “bracketology”, starting first as the owner and editor of the Blue Ribbon College Basketball Yearbook and ending up as the resident bracketologist on ESPN. He also teaches an online course at Saint Joseph’s University titled “Fundamentals of Bracketology”. Although Lunardi invented the term, he is ranked only 23rd in the past four years’ results of the tournament. In recent years the concept of bracketology has been applied to areas outside of basketball.