March Madness is the college basketball tournament that takes place every year to determine the national champion. A fun way to look at past tournaments is by analyzing the margin of victory for the final game. The above graph shows the margin of victory for every men’s championship game for the March Madness tournament starting in 1985. The tournament fist started in 1939, but the tournament expanded to 64 teams in 1985.
A one point victory has happened twice since 1985. The first was in 1987 when Indiana beat Syracuse by one point. The second happened two year later when Michigan beat Seton Hall in 1989 but one point.
The biggest blowout occurred in 1990. UNLV beat Duke by a whopping 30 points.
The average margin of victory is 8.5 points.
The 2020 game was canceled due to COVID-19.
March Madness Men’s Champion Margin of Victory Graph Notes:
The x-axis (horizontal part of the graph) shows the year the game took place. The y-axis (vertical part of the graph) shows the margin of victory. Each bar represents the margin of victory in the men’s champion game of March Madness. March Madness: The NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament, is a single-elimination tournament played every March in the United States. It currently features 68 college basketball teams from the Division 1 level of the NCAA, to determine the national champion. Margin Of Victory: The amount of points the winning team won by.
