What’s madder than March Madness, the 68-team single-elimination college basketball tournament that takes a month?
The NCAA cup: the 353-team single-elimination tournament that takes five months and crowns the ultimate champion of college basketball.

But who will win the 2020 NCAA Cup?
After the 2020 NCAA men’s basketball tournament was cancelled by the global COVID-19 pandemic, we all missed it desperately. The NCAA Cup is an imaginary tournament that can hopefully fill some of the void.
The idea comes from the great soccer tournaments of Europe, like the FA Cup in England. Every team qualifies, all matchups are randomly chosen, winners advance. Upsets abound, favorites get knocked out early, and a small school can ride a lucky streak all the way to a title.
The schedule for each round is announced at the beginning of the round. The games are simulated, day by day, using the whatifsports.com college basketball simulator. Winners of each game advance to the next round.
Results appear in real time on the official NCAA Cup twitter feed, @fixthemadness!
This page shows the complete results and schedule of the 2020 tournament.
The 2020 NCAA Cup began on Tuesday, April 7th, the day after the 2020 NCAA tournament would have ended. As of today (Tuesday, July 7th), round 2 has ended and round 3 has just begun.
Disclaimer: this is just for fun, it’s not an officially sanctioned NCAA event. But you should still use the results for your school’s bragging rights.
Yesterday’s results
4 PM ET
8 PM ET
10 PM ET
Washington 84
Illinois State 69
Today’s games
No games today, but stay tuned for the announcement of the Round of 42 matchups tomorrow!
When the games resume, find out live on Twitter at @fixthemadness!
The Schedule
The 2020 NCAA cup began on April 7th, the day after Duke lifted the 2020 NCAA tournament trophy. The championship game is August 29th, the same day that the 2020 college football season starts.
Because NCAA Division 1 has an odd number of teams (353), two teams were randomly selected for a “round 0.5” play-in game. Half the teams are eliminated in each round; when this results in an odd number of teams, two are randomly selected for another play-in game.
Here is the schedule of when each round starts and stops:
Round | Start Date | End Date |
0.5 | Tuesday, April 7, 2020 | |
1 | Friday, April 10, 2020 | Sunday, May 31, 2020 |
1.5 | Wednesday, June 3, 2020 | |
2 | Sunday, June 7, 2020 | Friday, July 3, 2020 |
3 | Saturday, July 4, 2020 | Monday, July 27, 2020 |
4 | Saturday, August 1, 2020 | Tuesday, August 11, 2020 |
5 | Thursday, August 13, 2020 | Tuesday, August 18, 2020 |
5.5 | Thursday, August 20, 2020 | |
6 | Friday, August 21, 2020 | Sunday, August 23, 2020 |
6.5 | Tuesday, August 25, 2020 | |
7 | Wednesday, August 26, 2020 | Thursday, August 27, 2020 |
8 | Saturday, August 29, 2020 | Saturday, August 29, 2020 |
Complete Results
Here are the complete results of this year’s tournament, round by round, including the play-in games. All matchups are determined at the beginning of the round, then simulated using the whatifsports.com college basketball simulator.
The home team is listed first, and the winning team is in bold.
Round 0.5 (play-in game)
Date and time | Result (home team listed first, click for game log) |
Wed Apr 8 8 PM ET | Navy 68 Virginia Commonwealth 59 |
Round 1
Round 1 results:
Round 1.5 (play-in game)
Date and time | Result (home team listed first, click for game log) |
Wed June 3 8 PM ET | Toledo 70 Radford 72 |
Round 2
Round 2 results:
Round 2.5 (play-in game)
Results of the play-in game (round 2.5):
Date and Time | Result (home team listed first, click for game log) |
Sat July 4 8 PM ET | Oakland 87 East Tennessee State 95 |
Round 3
Round 3 schedule:
Round 4
There are an even number of teams remaining (42), so no need for a play-in game.
Stay tuned for the announcement of the Round 4 schedule tomorrow! (Friday, July 31st)