Bracket Tie-Breaker Rules And History Of March Madness Title Game Scores

One oft-overlooked aspect of filling out a March Madness bracket is the National Championship Game’s tiebreaker point totals. It is certainly worth doing some research when it comes to NCAA pool tiebreakers: If you don’t include a total, you’ll feel pure pain if you lose out on your pool’s jackpot just because someone else had a closer guess (or simply, listed one at all) on the title game’s final score. Below we will look at recent and typical National Championship game final scores to offer a decent idea of what digits to place when you’re filling out your college basketball pool bracket.

Get help filling out your bracket this year

Need help filling out your NCAA men’s basketball tournament bracket this year? Keep tabs on the best March Madness odds, and stay tuned for TheLines’ March Madness bracket picks before the 2025 tourney tips off on Thursday, March 20, at noon ET.

Bracket tie breaker

Most people finish filling out their brackets by picking a National Title game winner and the bracket tiebreaker final score. Of course, there are some who prefer to work backwards and pick their title game winner first. Either way, in most March Madness contests, you will need to enter a final score for the NCAA National Championship Game in case there is a tie for total pick points in your pool.

Final score history For NCAA Title Game

One easy way to get an idea of how to make picks in the bracket tiebreaker slot is looking at NCAA title game history. As a general rule of thumb, final scores for each individual team land in the 65-85 range. Game totals typically land in the range of 130-160 points.

There are outliers, of course. The 2011 National Title game between UConn and Butler garnered only 94 total points with the Huskies scoring 53 and the Bulldogs tallying only 41 points. Several players blamed the shooting backdrop during that year’s Final Four on the low point totals. It is important to remember that most National Championship Games are played in football stadiums instead of shooter-friendly basketball arenas.

The 2025 edition will be hosted by the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas, a multiple-time former host of the championship weekend. During the last Final Four the in 2018, Villanova and Michigan totaled 141 points.

Here are the last 10 NCAA men’s basketball National Championship game scores, followed by game totals.

• 2024: UConn 75, Purdue 60
• 2023: UConn 76, San Diego State 59
• 2022: Kansas 72, North Carolina 69
• 2021: Baylor 86, Gonzaga 70
• 2019: Virginia 85, Texas Tech 77
• 2018: Villanova 79, Michigan 62
• 2017: North Carolina 71, Gonzaga 65
• 2016: Villanova 77, North Carolina 74
• 2015: Duke 68, Wisconsin 63
• 2014: UConn 60, Kentucky 54

Wildly enough, the back-to-back defending champion UConn Huskies totaled the exact same points with their conquered opponents, giving almost too exact an idea of what a good final score pick would be for March Madness pools.

Pool bracket final score totals

Here is a look at the pool bracket final score totals for the last 10 National Title games.

• 2024: 135 points
• 2023: 135 points
• 2022: 141 points
• 2021: 156 points
• 2019: 162 points
• 2018: 141 points
• 2017: 136 points
• 2016: 151 points
• 2015: 131 points
• 2014: 114 points

College basketball tournament average final score

The average final score for the college basketball National Title game over the past 10 tournaments is 140.2 points.

This has been dragged down by the past two seasons of a slower pace, but it nearly matches the average of combined points the last time the Alamodome hosted the title game in 2018 (Villanova vs. Michigan).

Games available to wager on now

There are plenty of college basketball games to wager on right now. Check out the CBB odds below.