Brackets
If you are managing a basketball pool of NCAA brackets, or you know someone who is, please feel free to download the NCAA Basketball Pool Manager file. This is used in conjunction with the basketball bracket file to automatically tabulate results, highlight winners in brackets, and cross out losing games. It allows scenario generation and modifying of point totals for each round (since each person prefers his/her own point total weighting, it allows for some customization).
Please feel free to share these files, but I ask that you reference this site when you do so. Also, these files are intended for not-for-profit use.
March Madness Excel Bracket
Click here to download the basketball bracket. When prompted, choose to save this file to your computer (the desktop is fine). Microsoft Excel is needed in order to use this program. It works best when macros are enabled (see below for info on macros). If you cannot use macros (because of security settings or personal preference), you will not be able to one-click to advance teams, but the bracket is still very easy to complete. Many thanks to Tom Szarek for developing the macroless capabilities, and doing the majority of the work in building the new bracket for the 68-team field.
You will find instructions on the first tab for filling out the bracket (it just involves clicking). The basketball bracket is on the second tab. Once done, save the file and submit it to your pool manager.
Basketball Pool Manager File
This requires Microsoft Excel and macros must be enabled. See below for info on macros.
Click here to download the NCAA basketball bracket pool manager file. NOTE: this is missing some of the functionality from past year’s versions (download the version 7 pool manager file and bracket here with 2013 teams pre-populated). I redid a lot of it in order to make it flexible for counting the First Four games, if that’s something the pool manager wants. Unfortunately, the pool manager file will not have any custom scoring this year, but that feature will return in future years (along with other improvements).
This is free code. Please share with others, make your own improvements, or offer suggestions for future upgrades. Please let me know how the program has worked for you – I’d love to hear your stories.
Note: This has been extensively tested using Excel 2002 (part of MS Office XP) and Excel 2007-2010 on Windows XP, Vista, and 7 platforms. You may see errors if you use this file on a different Excel/Windows version or on a Macintosh computer, but these should not cause any damage to your computer. Please feel free to alert me about any bugs; if they’re easy to fix, I’ll make the changes and post a new version of the file. Someday I’ll get this to work well on a Mac, but it won’t be this year.
NCAA Women’s Basketball bracket
Thanks to user Steve who did what I what I’ve been too lazy to do – he populated the brackets with the women’s teams. Click below to download.
Bracket file (to send to participants)
Pool manager file
Enjoy!
I hope that you enjoy watching the tournament and that these Excel basketball bracket files somehow contribute to your fun. ~B. David Tyler
While I understand that some people choose to gamble on the NCAA tournament results, the effort is not meant to either endorse or enable gambling. I share this as a way for you to brag to peers about your superior basketball clairvoyance. Please note that this is not supported by or in any way connected to the NCAA.
First Four
Starting in 2011, the NCAA bracket includes the “First Four” matchups to be played on the Tuesday and Wednesday of the first week of March Madness. The winners of those games advance to the round of 64. Pools that wish to use these games may do so, but it is not required. Regardless of whether these games count in a pool, a participant wishing to advance the winner of one of the First Four games to the round of 32 must advance the correct winner of the First Four game for points to be awarded in the round of 64. If the participant advances the loser of the First Four game, the participant will not be awarded any points even if upsets take place later in the bracket. As an example:
First Four Game: Team 12A vs. Team 12B
Second Round Game: Team 5 vs. Winner Team 12A/Team 12B
Jane predicts that Team 12A defeats Team 5 in the round of 64. Jane will be awarded points only if Team 12A defeats Team 12B and then Team 12A defeats Team 5.
Jane will not be awarded any points if Team 12B defeats Team 12A and then Team 12B defeats Team 5.
The results of the First Four games should be known before most bracket deadlines, so participants are encouraged to wait for the completion of those games before submitting their brackets. Pool Managers are encouraged to double-check for mistakes before importing and bracket into the Pool Manager file. That said, the decision is up to the pool manager, so be sure to check with your pool manager about the policy.
Macros
How to do I enable macros to use the Bracket file?
Excel 97-2003
When opening the document, select ENABLE MACROS when prompted to do so. If you are not prompted, check your security settings under: Tools… Options… Security… Macro Security… [set your level to "Medium", then click OK twice]. Once this is done, close Excel completely and reopen the document.
Excel 2007+
After the document opens, click on the “Options…” box at the top of the screen. In the following window, click “Enable this content” and then “Ok”.
What is a macro?
When talking about Microsoft Office (Word, Excel, etc), a macro is a piece of hand-generated code that adds functionality to the software application; the code is written in the “Visual Basic for Applications” language and is part of the Excel file. In the case of the bracket, I wrote code to automatically advance teams through the bracket when you click on the team names; this is not something that Excel does normally, but through macros I could tell Excel exactly what I want to happen.
What is the exact macro code in the bracket file?
Good for you to ask. Open the Excel document and press Alt-F11. This will open up the Visual Basic editor, and by clicking on sheet and module names on the left side of the screen you will be able to view all code. You can do this before enabling macros, that way your computer isn’t at risk. Once you’re satisfied that this is no malicious code, you can close the file, reopen it, and enable macros. There is no malicious code in my files, but I won’t be offended if you’d rather check for yourself.
Do you do custom templates? I have a client that is putting together a Mortal Combat Tournament. We can make it look nice but I need someone who can add easy to use functionality.
A Mortal Kombat Tournament, interesting! Which version?
There’s an error I found, and fortunately it doesn’t have an impact, but I haven’t had the time yet to test all of the cells. If you advance Gonzaga instead of BYU, it doesn’t give any points. Are there any other matchups like this?
By the way this is on the 2010 version with 2011 teams.
Excellent Job once again. If you are open to suggestions for next year, I have a couple. (1) On the leader board it would be helpful to see the final 4, final 2, and champion choices for each entry. This can help people farther down know if they have a chance to pass people. (2) Total points possible for each entry. (3) A way to extract the email addresses from all the entries (copy to clipboard) or a “respond to all” option. Finally, I wanted to say thanks again. Your hard work keeps my job of running the pool from interfering too much with my “real” job.
Any chance we’ll get an update this year that incorporates that leaderboard functionality? I love that in v7 you can see everyone’s final four, final game, and champion picks – really missing that in the new version.
Thanks for all your work on this; I’ve been using Excel to track several NCAA tournament games at work since 1997 and this is truly impressive.
Brian – not this year, unfortunately. That should be on there and will be automated in the future. As you noted, I had that as a feature in the old version of the pool manager file, but when the NCAA went to 68 times I overhauled the workbook. I haven’t made time to get that back in. The good news is that I plan to put it back in for 2013 (along with other enhancements). If you’re really desperate, you can either
Sorry for my slacking** this year, but check back in 2013!
**Actually, working on stuff like this is how I slack off. Had I not worked so much at my day job, we’d have a great pool manager file this year!
OK, awesome – got that figured out, thanks. If anyone else is interested I can send them the spreadsheet. Any hints on how to do the conditional formatting to show if a team is still in or not?
My work makes us also do a women’s bracket. Is there a way to modify the mens version to use for the women’s tournament? Thanks.
Absolutely. To change the teams, unhide and unprotect the “BracketDesign” tab. In column F, input the women’s teams. Note that, for the first round (round of 128), you’ll need to put each team twice; then in the round of 64, you just need to put each team once.
Great job as always David. When I open entry bracket in Mac Excel 2011 – there are red “ERROR” message under the empty brackets – mostly in South region. Any ideas?
Also – neither will let me click to advance. Any ideas on know issues/fixes with Mac 2011?
Specifically – this is for last years bracket that had the upset points option
Thanks Scott. I’m not sure why that is, or why it’s isolated to the SOUTH region. Then again, I’m amazed it works on Macs at all given I haven’t ever tested it on Macs. I’ll look into it tonight and see if I can figure out a solution. It would be really helpful if you could email me (use form on the “About” page) with any other details. For example, which games specifically are or are not giving the red “ERROR” message.
I’m attempting to use the version 7 copy to use upset scoring, but I can’t get the teams to advance on the master bracket tab of the pool manager file. I’m using Excel 2010 and have macros enabled.
Dang, I’ll fix that within the next hour or so. I’ll post here when it’s updated. (note: your participants’ brackets are fine. Just the pool manager will need to download the new version when it’s ready.)
Wow, easy fix: I just Unprotected that sheet. A new version is now available for download, but you can just unprotect the sheet and it will work fine. Thanks for the catch.
BTW, thank you very much for telling me your Excel version and that you had macros enabled. It narrowed my troubleshooting down considerably.
That worked great! Thanks again for putting this sheet together. I’ve always enjoyed using it.
Using Office 2000, can’t advance team in master bracket. Gives error 1004.
moved up to office 2007 and all seem OK.
Thanks for all your hard work again this year. I asked last year and you said you would work it in for this year but, How would you do upset scoring? Ie 12 beats a 5 so you would get points for the win and then bonus 7 for the upset??? Thanks
Tim- Yeah, I did say I’d work on that for this year. Sorry… but I’ll say it again: “I’ll work on that for 2013!” I have several ideas I want to implement, and my plan is to work on them over Christmas break next year. Check back again in the future for updates!
Is there any way to get the 4 play in games to count as round one games for points?
Yes – see the instructions on the PoolMgmt tab. You just need to change the point value assigned to the Round of 128 games on the Scoring tab (cell E2)
I am getting an “unreadable content” when trying to open the NCAA Bracket.xls file. Reading online, it seems this is an issue with Excel 2003/2007 and Windows 7/Excel 2010. Has anyone had this error…and what did you do to fix it? Any chance to get an Excel 2010 version of this bracket? The Bracket Manager opens fine. I believe it may have something to do with a “pivot table”…but cannot say for sure…just what I read.
Can anyone help here? I’ve tested this on Excel 2002, 2007, and 2010 and it works fine (I use Excel 2010 on a Windows 7 machine).
I’m using XP Pro with Excel2007 without problems. Have created 45 brackets so far and also imported them into the Pool Manager. So far so good.
One person said they has this error when VBA support was not installed. Is part of the shared components. Might reinstall and select VBA support to see if that will fix it.
Well i have excel 2010 on windows 7. Not an excel experty like some here, but try as I might I can not get the new or the old versions to work. I can get the participants brackets to load, but only doing them 1 at a time. However once they are loaded, once you try and advance winning teams, runtime erro 1004. Also, none of the indiv brackets picks are visible.
So I downloaded the v7, master and bracket. Of course I will have to re do all participants bracket to that version. I did one, loaded bracket, then when I try and save the v7 master, it wont save, changes the name of the spreadsheet and puts it into a format I can not open.
I know this alot of jibberish, but any ideas how I can get my 30 brackets entered? I already have conceded the play in game wont be counted. but right now I can’t get aything entered or saved.
Great sheet and I have used it in past years, but no luck this year.
Thanks in advance for any help./
I wouldn’t bother with v7 quite yet… this issue should be able to be resolved.
My first thought would be to download a fresh version of the pool manager file. It’s possible something got changed accidentally, so it’s best to start over.
Second – be sure that there are no errors on the files you’re importing. Did the users all put their names and phone digits into the brackets? Also, make sure that the users’ names don’t start with a special character; someone else had a user named “#1 Bob Smith” and that broke the system.
Anyone else have ideas here?
There are several links above to download. I originally downloaded the earliest (newest)one you had posted last Sunday night (master and bracket) and that is the one I sent out to group. Which master should i download?
Almost all the links are to the same two files: The Pool Manager file and the Bracket file. I never know how much of my blabbering people read, so I scatted the same links throughout! (I’m an academic… we’re not good at being concise) IF you want to be sure you have the most recent pool manager file (which has some bug fixes from the Sunday night version), re-download the pool manager file and use that fresh one to import your participants’ brackets. [no need to send out new brackets to users]
The only different links are the ones for version 7 of the pool mgr and bracket files. Those are part of the old system… you don’t need those, but I know some users like them so I make them available. Next year (I hope) all functionality will be merged into the same system so that version 7 should go away.
Downloaded all new manager/bracket files to my work computer and it works just fine, including scoring play in games, Makes me wonder if I don’t have a bug in my excel program at home, or maybe a virus. Sorry to my boss, looks like I’ll be spending a little office time managing the brackets this year. Thanks for your assistance Dave.
Well downloaded the version above. Once I do that,once I load a bracket, none of the selections on that loaded brackets are visible. All cells are yellow and all picks are blank. Then you get run time 1004 error application defined or object defined error when you try and advance a winner. I get that any time i try to advance any winner, with or without individual brackets loaded. I can not see where there are any errors on the individual bracket I loaded.
First of all Mr. Tyler the work you have done with these spreadsheets is nothing short of AMAZING ~ Thank You for sharing them !!!
Could you please explain how to edit the regions on the Master Bracket and Individual Bracket pages? (They are currently defaulted to the 2011 regions). I haven’t found in the code where the regions are defined so I can make the edits there. I considered just un-protecting those two sheets and stomping on the cell contents but I’m pretty sure that would “screw something up”. Thanks Again!
All the Best……..
Brian – first of all, your instincts are correct. Manually doing anything is likely to “screw something up.” This workbook is so interconnected that I’m even scared of making changes sometimes.
As for the regions, they should reflect the 2012 data. If not, something is wrong. If you’re seeing the 2012 teams in there, you should be seeing the 2012 regions.
But if you want to mess with them, they’re “named constants.” See the Ozgrid site for an explanation of working with them (I’d include a link, but I’m having some issues linking in WordPress right now)… a Google Search will pop it right up.
Thanks for the quick reply David. Yes I’ve downloaded the NCAA Basketball Pool Manager from the link at the top of this page (several times actually over the last couple of days). The file is named “NCAAPoolManager.xls” and indicated as having been last modified by you on 3/12/12. Each of those downloaded files correctly show the teams in each region however the title of the regions shown on the brackets in the two tabs read “East” instead of “South” (i.e. upper left), “Southwest” instead of “East” (i.e. upper right), and “Southeast” instead of “Midwest” (i.e. lower right ), the “West” is correct (i.e. lower left). I note that the regions are correctly denoted on the player’s individual bracket spreadsheet.
I found the Ozgrid site ~ THANK YOU for the great lead ~ I’ll go do my “homework” in the morning when I have “fresh eyes” and before the games begin. David ~ you remain an “Excel God” to me ~ LOL !!!
Dang, you’re right. I was thinking of the Brackets where, as you noted, they are labeled correctly. Well, I uploaded a new pool manager file to the website… you don’t need it though. Glad you figured out how to change the regions, and sorry for the trouble. At least you learned something about Excel in the process!
David,
You’re a sick puppy! I just looked under the hood and it blew my mind. How long did it take you to complete the original version? Wow! Great job!
Ha, thanks Chris. The original version was made in March 2002 and was very simple (pretty much just click-to-advance). Each year I just added a few new features. My friend Tom helped out a ton with the macroless error checking on the user bracket, and my friend Tim helped with the new website, so I have had some assistance.
Twice I’ve scrapped most of the bracket system and started off fresh (2007 and 2011); next year will be a pretty big update too. In total, the time put into this is too spread out to actually calculate, which is a good thing. If my wife knew how much time I actually spend on these, she’d probably have some words…
Will there be a 2013 pre-populated release of these brackets? Thanks, and what a wonderful job you have done with this project.
Yes, there will be a 2013 version. I had grand visions of finally implementing a whole bunch of changes & enhancements this year, but I’ll postpone those grand visions until 2014. That said, keep any feedback coming (see contact submission form); I retain all comments for consideration on upgrades.
David – been running pools for years – just wanted to let you know your file is a lifesaver. My pool is run in excel (I prefer that to online) and has 400+ entries each year. Not having to highlight the winners saves me days of time and lots of heartache from my wife! I wish i could just update the teams in the file each year as it could avoid the heart palpitations as a wait to see if you will be updating the files…
I am glad to see you will be updating it again for 2013! I always reference your site and try to get others who run pools to check it out as well.
Thanks again
Thanks for the comments, Greg! It’s feedback like this that make me really happy to post it. I love knowing that time is saved and lives are made easier.
I am looking forward to 2013 Excel Bracket. You have the greatest thing going with this and so easy to use. Thanks -
All of this looks great! I fully intend on using it for my pool this year. One bit of feedback that I have is about the “First Four” games. Is there a way to disregard the outcome of the First Four games? For instance, lets use the example in your instructions. Say I believe the winner of a First Four game will then go on to upset their next opponent in the Round of 64. My pool essentially allows you to write “12A/12B” on the Round of 32 line. Will there be a way to implement this into the 2013 bracket?
At this time, that’s not possible. One option is to use the version 7 brackets and pool manager file, but you’ll sacrifice some functionality when doing that.
Being able to disregard the First Four is a good idea though, and fully reasonable request to want. I’ll keep it in mind for whenever I actually get around to improving the brackets. Thanks for your thoughts.
By far the best pool manager I’ve seen or used. K
David, These files are outstanding. I have used them for a few years now. I know you’ve been too busy to mess with them much. But, Is there anyway to get the manager program to score in the upset style you previously had a few years back???
That would make this the totally perfect files ever.
There isn’t an easy way, unfortunately. Your only option at this time is the use the v7 brackets (posted above), which have all the sweet features (but only 64 teams).
I really need to get those features in this new version… in 2013, I’m not planning on having any more children or completing any more advanced degrees (things that took up a lot of time over the last few years, with 2 kids, 2 Master’s degrees, and a PhD), so I can do some work on these brackets. It will only take a few days, really, but I have just have set aside the time to do it. Thanks for the encouragement!! Knowing the demand is out there helps. Feel free to bug me next year, when I hope it will be better than ever.
Mr. Tyler –
Thank you for sharing this (for free)! It has been very useful in helping me run my pool. Really appreciate it!
I corresponded directly with Anonymous. The problem was that Anonymous had unprotected the worksheet and made some modifications. That’s fine, but Anonymous had accidentally deleted one of the hidden error formulas. This should be a reminder that the bracket file is extremely intricate in its formulae. Be very careful when making modifications that you do not alter the existing logic. I love to see others modify the bracket, but unfortunately, its additional features have made it more “delicate.”