Bracket

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: Men's | Women's. This is used in conjunction with the basketball bracket file (Men's | Women's) 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 share these files, but I ask that you reference this site when you do so. Also, these files are intended for entertainment and prognostication, not for pecuniary uses.

March Madness Excel Bracket

Click here to download the basketball bracket:
Men's | Women's

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:
Men's | Women's

NOTE: I didn't bother with the version 7 files this year. If you use those, shoot me a note and I'll pull them together. Otherwise, I won't bother updating them going forward.
Ignore this if you don't understand what v7 means

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 haven't used it in over a decade, but I love hearing your stories.

Note: I built and tested this using Excel 365 on Windows 11 platform. 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.

Enjoy!

I hope that you enjoy watching the tournaments 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, this effort is not meant to either endorse nor enable gambling. I share this as a way for you to brag to peers about your superior basketball clairvoyance, and as a proof-of-concept for how to do fun things in Excel. Please note that this is not supported by or in any way connected to the NCAA. Users use these products at their own risk and no warranty is explicit or implied.

Macros

How to do I enable macros to use the Bracket file?

Excel 2007+

After the document opens, click on the "Enable Content" button on the yellow bar (Security Warning) at the top of the screen.

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.

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.