College Basketball Random Bracket

Now that college basketball excitement is in full swing, here’s a fun free game. The best part is it's easy to play this with your family and friends and you don't need a Microsoft 365 subscription.

 

This is a unique way to participate during the college basketball tournament where you own a set of teams that Excel randomly assigns to you. This isn’t a standard bracket tracker: you don’t have to pick winners and losers or think about stats and upsets. Excel assigns you the teams to root for and puts you in head-to-head competition with your friends.  

 

Game animation

 

Click here for the men's game, and here for the women's game to view the templates. You will have the option to use it for free on the web or download it for use on Desktop (Windows or Mac). See the "Getting Started" section for instructions.

 

Getting Started

To get started, click here for the men's game, and here for the women's game to get the Excel file and make a copy of the file on your OneDrive account.

1. Go to File › Save As › Download a Copy,
2. Go to OneDrive,
3. Select Upload › Files,
4. Select the Excel file you downloaded in step 1,
5. Once the upload is complete, you can open the file to use it.

 

Game Flow

Here’s a summary of the game flow, and the Excel file will share detailed instructions.

1. On “Setup Step 1", enter the names of you and your friends, then Excel will randomly assign teams to each of you. On “Setup Step 2” you can enter Excel’s recommended random numbers and view the assignment of teams to players to keep things evenly weighted.
2. You can share the game with your family and friends on the top right corner of the app. Learn more about sharing here.

   Share button on top right of Excel

    

3. As the tournament progresses, you record the rounds where teams get eliminated in “Team Assignment” and the “Bracket” and “Leader Board” will automatically update to show which player is in the lead. From time to time, we’ll post updated elimination tables as well that you can copy into your file.
4. The winner is the single person that was assigned the team that ultimately wins - the champion left after all other players/teams have been eliminated!

 

Updates

(latest update: 4/4)

The team names have been updated with the latest information from 3/16. To modify your game,

1. You can open the men's basketball game and/or the women's basketball game source files.
2. Go to the "Team assignments" sheet tab.
3. Select the data in "Team" column from H7:H70. Right click> copy. 
4. In your destination file, select the data from H7:H70 in the "Team" column in the "Team Assignments" sheet.  Right click> paste.

Team column in Team Assignments sheet.

As of 4/4, the "Eliminated When" column in "Team assignments" sheet have been updated with the results through 4/3, including the Championship!  To modify your game,

1. You can open the men's basketball game and/or the women's basketball game source files.
2. Go to the "Team assignments" sheet tab.
3. Select the data in "Eliminated When" column from I7:I70. Right click> copy. 
4. In your destination file, select the data from I7:I70 in the "Eliminated When" column on the "Team Assignments" sheet.  Right click> paste.

Eliminated When column in green (men's)

 

Finishing the Game

This is what the “Bracket” sheet can look like when the tournament is over and all the elimination rounds have been entered in the “Team Assignments” sheet.

 

Women's Game

This is an example of the Women's tournament where Benjamin Oliver wins as their team, LSU, is the Champion.

Women's Championship closeup

 

 

Women's Championship

 

Men's Game

This is an example of the Men's finals, where Wayne Campbell (WC) wins as their team, WC, wins the championship.

Men's Champion

 

Men's final bracket example

 

Hope you liked the game, and got to check out a few cool Excel features!

 

By:

Johnnie Thomas, Jordan Yoon-Buck, Jerica Copeny, Urmi Gupta