bracketology

American  

[brak-i-tol-uh-jee] / ˌbræk ɪˈtɒl ə dʒi /

noun

Sports.

1. a system of diagrammatically predicting and tracking the process of elimination among sequentially paired opponents in a tournament, especially an NCAA basketball tournament.

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Other Word Forms

• bracketologist noun

Etymology

Origin of bracketology

First recorded in 1995–2000; bracket ( def. ) (in the sports sense of “a diagram for tracking advancement in tournament”) + -o- ( def. ) + -logy ( def. )

Explanation

Bracketology is the process of guessing who will win each elimination round in a college basketball tournament. Your own bracketology might consist of picking winners whose team mascots you like best. ESPN basketball analyst Joe Lunardi is credited with coining the term bracketology in the 1990s. It comes from the method used to guess the outcome of the men's and women's NCAA tournaments. Starting with 68 teams and ending with two in the final game, winners are predicted for each single-elimination round using a bracket, or tree diagram. If you're not into basketball, you can use bracketology for other contests, like the coolest superhero or the best-ever animated movie.

Example Sentences

And Liker’s accomplishment rung throughout the bracketology community: all 67 teams chosen correctly and 57 seeded perfectly.

From Los Angeles Times • Mar. 16, 2023

The Barking Crow, an NIT bracketology site, had the Cougars in the field as of Thursday morning.

From Seattle Times • Mar. 9, 2023

Willard relays that information to his players — bracketology, analytics, strength-of-schedule metrics and so on.

From Washington Post • Jan. 25, 2023

Myths and legends are invoked along with genetics and geophysics, but bracketology is the relevant intellectual discipline.

From New York Times • Mar. 30, 2021

The Hoyas weren’t necessarily in that conversation before, but after the upset of Villanova, NCAA.com’s Andy Katz included Georgetown as a First Four team in his latest bracketology projection Thursday.

From Washington Times • Feb. 21, 2019