March Madness Math
The NCAA basketball tournament determines the best collegiate hoops team in the country, but parents can turn it into a math extravaganza for their kids. With four brackets of teams ranked from 1-16, the tournament provides a math lesson each day in your local newspaper or website.
For three weeks, your kids can crunch numbers before, during, and after the games. Even better, the NCAA plays a men's and women's tournament, which gives you twice the opportunities to reinforce those math skills.
Addition:
Take out a copy of the seeding brackets (located in your local paper's sports pages.) Next to each team, you'll find a number which represents the team's ranking in that particular bracket. The best teams have the lowest numbers and the worst teams have the highest. Now get ready to start adding!
1. What number do you get when you add the rankings of any two competitors in the first round?
2. What is the highest possible number you can get for a second round match-up? The lowest?
3. What is the highest possible number you can get for a third round match-up? The lowest?
4. What is the highest possible number you can get for a fourth round match-up? The lowest?
Exercises:
- Add up the pairings in each round and find out which game has the highest number for the tournament.
- Add together the teams remaining in each of the four brackets after every round to see to see which has the highest number.
- Ask you child what it means when one bracket has a higher number than another.
Subtraction
5. In the first round match-ups, subtract the lower of the ranking numbers from the higher one. What similarity do you find?
6. Do the same thing for the second round games. If the favored teams won their first round match-ups, what do you get when you subtract? How about if one of the teams won as an underdog (lower seeded) in the first round? How about if both underdogs won?
Exercises:
Theoretically, the lower the total when you subtract one ranking from the other, the closer the teams should be in ability. Have your child figure out which should be the best games before each round.
Multiplication & Division
Multiplication:
7. In the first round, all four brackets play eight games. How many games is that total?
Division:
8. In every round the number of teams remaining is divided by two. The tournament starts with 64 teams. How many will still be playing in each consecutive round?
Counting
9. How many games does a team need to win to become the national champion?
Exercises
Track how many teams with a given seed remain after each round. For instance, how many #3 seeds will still be playing after the second round? You can also keep tabs on which remaining teams have the highest ranking numbers.
The Game
Exercises
With all the scoring in basketball, kids get a chance to add every few seconds. Ask your child how the score has changed after free throws, baskets, and three-point shots. Have your kids challenge you to do the same.
Figure out the difference between the rankings of the two teams and keep track during the game to see if the lower ranked team stays closer than that number. It might mean the team is playing better than expected.
Pick a player, try to choose a good one, and count how many shots that player takes and how much that player takes and how much that player scores. You can also count which team takes more shots or which team makes more three-point baskets.
Division
10. College basketball has a 35-second shot clock. How many 35-second intervals are there in a 20 minute half. Remember, minutes work on a base of 60 not 100.
Word Problem
11. If one team scores 27 three-point baskets, how many two-point baskets would it take to beat them?
Answers
1. 17
2. Lowest-9, highest-25
3. Lowest-5, highest-29
4. Lowest-3, highest-31
5. All odd numbers (15, 13, 11, 9, 7, 5, 3, 1)
6. Favored teams win-all odd numbers, one upset-8, two upsets-all odd numbers.
7. 32
8. 32, 16, 8, 4, 2 8. 32, 16, 8, 4, 2
9. 6
10. 34 2/5
11. 41
