All You Need to Know About the 2023 NCAA Tournament

The 2023 NCAA Tournament delivered one of the most chaotic and memorable March Madness runs in recent history, with college basketball’s top teams fighting it out to be the very best. Below is a full retrospective on what happened, who won, the biggest upsets, and the betting angles that defined the bracket.

Although several teams entered as favorites to bring home the 2023 crown, the field proved wide open. With most top players heading to the NBA after a single college season, almost any team can make a deep run in a given year, and 2023 made that clearer than ever.

Let’s look back at how the 2023 tournament unfolded, the teams that were the most popular betting options at NCAA basketball tournament sites, and some history of the tournament and its greatest teams, players, and moments.

• Important Information About the NCAA Tournament
• 2023 NCAA Tournament Betting Favorites
• Most Successful NCAA Basketball Tournament Teams
• NCAA Tournament’s Greatest Players
• Best NCAA Tournament Games

The 2023 NCAA Basketball Tournament – Important Information

The 2023 NCAA Tournament began with Selection Sunday on March 12, followed by the two-day First Four play-in round on March 14-15 in Dayton, Ohio. The bracket got underway in earnest on March 16 with first-round games across the US.

The Final Four was played on April 1, with the national championship decided on April 3 at NRG Stadium in Houston, Texas. The semifinals were an unlikely group: No. 4 UConn, No. 5 Miami (FL), No. 5 San Diego State, and No. 9 Florida Atlantic, with no top-three seed left standing.

In the title game, UConn beat San Diego State 76-59 to claim its fifth national championship, with Adama Sanogo named Most Outstanding Player. The Huskies were so dominant that they won all six tournament games by at least 13 points, capping a run that few had predicted when the bracket was first released.

Since 2023, UConn has only grown its legacy. The Huskies repeated in 2024, beating Purdue 75-60 to go back-to-back. In 2025, the title went to Florida, which rallied past Houston 65-63 for its third championship and first since 2007. The takeaway across all three years is the same: this is a tournament where favorites can win, but nothing is guaranteed.

Betting Favorites at the 2023 NCAA Basketball Tournament

Heading into the 2023 tournament, a handful of teams led the betting markets. While most of the field sat at +2,000 or longer, a small group of contenders stood out, including the UCLA Bruins and Alabama Crimson Tide near the top of the odds board.

The Houston Cougars opened as the betting favorite and a No. 1 seed after a strong season under head coach Kelvin Sampson. That made for an intriguing storyline, as the Cougars had not won an NCAA Tournament and had not reached the final since the back-to-back appearances by Hakeem Olajuwon’s Phi Slama Jama teams in 1983 and 1984. In 2023, Houston bowed out in the Sweet 16, a reminder of how quickly bracket odds can unravel.

The defending champion Kansas Jayhawks were among the favorites behind Jalen Wilson’s averages of more than 20 points and nearly nine rebounds per game, alongside the Purdue Boilermakers, with the Tennessee Volunteers rounding out the leading contenders.

In the end, none of the pre-tournament favorites cut down the nets. The way the NCAA Tournament has gone in recent years, a surprise team making a run all the way to the final is always in play, so anyone engaging in NCAA tournament betting faces a tough and exciting path. For more on how to approach the bracket, see our March Madness betting strategy guide, and to compare operators check out our guide to the best online sportsbooks.

The Most Successful NCAA Tournament Teams

While many teams have enjoyed success in the NCAA Tournament, UCLA stands head and shoulders above with 11 championships, including seven straight between 1967 and 1973. The Bruins remain the only team in double figures in championships, with the Kentucky Wildcats second on eight.

The North Carolina Tar Heels have reached more than 20 Final Fours, but have converted only a fraction of those into titles, holding six championships across the program’s storied history.

For much of the past decade there was no dominant team at the top, with Villanova the only program to win the title twice between 2012 and 2020 (in 2016 and 2018). Before that, Villanova had just one previous NCAA title, back in 1985 as an eighth seed in one of the greatest Cinderella stories in sports.

That openness has since given way to a new dynasty: UConn’s championships in 2023 and 2024 made the Huskies the first program to repeat since Florida in 2006 and 2007, lifting Connecticut to six titles overall and even with North Carolina on the all-time list.

The NCAA Tournament’s Greatest Players

Great teams need great players, and a number of men have stood out over the decades thanks to the impact they made on the NCAA Tournament. Some became NBA legends, others had careers that did not quite pan out, but each of these players earned pride of place in the storied history of the NCAA Tournament.

Lew Alcindor

Later to dominate the NBA as a Laker after becoming Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, Alcindor is, without question, one of the greatest players in the history of college basketball. Across three seasons at UCLA, he won the NCAA Tournament and was named Most Outstanding Player all three times.

Alcindor is also the reason the dunk was banned in NCAA basketball for a time, in an effort to level the playing field. Quite the college legacy for one player to enjoy.

Christian Laettner

It takes a lot to stand out as the most hated player on a team as hated as Duke was in the 90s, but Christian Laettner managed it, and he did it by simply being incredible at basketball. Laettner holds the records for most games played, most free throws made, most free throws attempted, and most points scored in NCAA Tournament history.

With a championship and a Most Outstanding Player award to his name, Laettner was so good he was the lone college player selected for the famed Dream Team at the 1992 Olympic Games in Barcelona.

Bill Russell

The University of San Francisco won back-to-back NCAA Tournament titles in 1955 and 1956, and defensive juggernaut Bill Russell averaged 20 points and 20 rebounds across both years. A true legend of the game with a legacy that stands in both the NCAA and NBA, they do not come better than Bill Russell.

Magic Johnson and Larry Bird

Two names tied together throughout their college and professional careers, it is impossible to separate Bird and Magic. Johnson gets the edge in college purely because his Michigan State Spartans defeated Bird’s Indiana State in the 1979 NCAA final, but these two were far and away the greatest players in college basketball at that time.

Bill Walton

Bill Walton has a similar legacy to Christian Laettner, one of the greatest college players ever, with a solid professional career that fell just short of expectations. Even so, nothing can take away the 21-for-22 shooting performance Walton put on in the 1973 NCAA final, en route to his second straight title and second straight Most Outstanding Player award.

The Best NCAA Tournament Games

While there is rarely a boring NCAA Tournament game, there is a special formula behind the very best: excitement, twists, turns, and memorable moments. Here is our pick of some of the greatest games the tournament has produced:

Duke vs Kentucky – 1992 NCAA East Regional Final

Just a year after hitting two clutch free throws to put Duke past UNLV in the national semifinals, Christian Laettner outdid himself in the 1992 East Regional Final against Kentucky.

The game was epic throughout, and as overtime wound down, Kentucky’s Sean Woods grabbed a one-point lead. With just 2.1 seconds left and the ball under their own basket, Grant Hill threw a length-of-the-court pass to Laettner, who hit a turnaround jumper at the buzzer to give Duke the 104-103 win.

North Carolina vs Kansas – 1957 NCAA Championship Game

Wilt Chamberlain’s averages of close to 30 points and 20 rebounds a game had seen Kansas dominate the competition heading into this game. UNC, however, had a plan: put multiple defenders on Wilt at all times. It worked, as the low-scoring affair went to triple overtime before UNC pulled out a 54-53 win.

UMBC vs Virginia – 2018 South Regional First Round

No. 16 seeds did not beat No. 1 seeds, which everyone knew after it had not happened in 135 consecutive tries heading into this matchup between powerhouse Virginia and underdog UMBC.

UMBC were 20.5-point underdogs in NCAA Tournament betting before the game. Instead of merely covering, UMBC shocked the world and beat Virginia by 20. That barrier fell again in 2023, when 16-seed Fairleigh Dickinson stunned No. 1 Purdue 63-58 in the biggest point-spread upset the tournament has seen, proof that March Madness can humble anyone.