What is the average score of the March Madness final?
Let me guess, you’re filling out your March Madness bracket and now you need a tiebreaker for the final score of the championship game. Or maybe you're looking to place a wager on a total for a given NCAA Tournament game and are trying to figure out the best way to attack that.
It was hard enough to avoid the bracket busters hanging around. Where do you even begin to guess the final score?
If so, or you’re just genuinely curious about average final scores, then you’re in the right place.
What is the average score of March Madness final games?
The average score of the NCAA Tournament championship game is 77-68, or if you're looking for a total score, that would be an average of 145 points scored in the title game going into 2023.
That’s what Insider calculated based on all the men’s finals going back to 1987 when the 3-pointer was introduced.
Does that mean you should use 77-68 as your go-to tiebreaker? Maybe not. That number was calculated using scores for games that turned into blowouts. For instance, Baylor blasted Gonzaga by 16 points in 2021. That blowout and others skews the average. So with that knowledge, maybe we should instead look at the final scores from the last 5 March Madness finals.
Year | Winning Team | Losing Team | Total Points |
|---|---|---|---|
2023 | UConn 79 | San Diego State 59 | 138 |
2022 | Kansas 72 | North Carolina 69 | 141 |
2021 | Baylor 86 | Gonzaga 70 | 156 |
2019 | Virginia 85 | Texas Tech 77 | 162 (OT) |
2018 | Villanova 79 | Michigan 62 | 141 |
Over the last five years, the average final score in the national championship has been 80.2-67.4, giving us an average total of 147.6, which we could round up to 148 points total.
Beyond that, it’s better to base your tiebreaker answer based on the teams you have playing in the title game.
If you have two high-powered offenses facing off for the championship, your tiebreaker score should look very different than if you have gone for defensive juggernauts. In 2011, Jim Calhoun’s Connecticut beat Buttler, 53-41. In 1990, Jerry Tarkanian’s unstoppable UNLV offense beat Duke 103-73. Those scores are a reflection of the teams involved in the title game.
It really does just depend.
Or you could just plug in 77-68. Who knows, it could work out for you. In any case, good luck filling out your bracket this year. You never know, yours could be the elusive Perfect Bracket.
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