Inspiration
March Madness is upon us once again, and while everyone else is filling out their brackets in hopes of getting 68 / 68 predictions right, I was busy thinking up another twist to the tourney.
Two years ago, I made a bracket of mascots’ names in place of teams, seeding them based the quality of mascot name, but this year I decided to go for a team-to country conversion.
Which country will come out on top?
FIBA Madness
Selection of the Field
The selection of the 2025 FIBA Tourney field was quite straightforward, as I was able to use the FIBA website to get a list of the of the 160 teams participating. Of these, 68 teams qualified for the field.
The top overall seed, unsurprisingly, is USA. The other #1 seeds include Serbia, Germany, and France.
Shown below are the top 16 teams, corresponding to Seeds 1 – 4 in each of the four regions of the bracket. I have a feeling that the winner of the 2025 FIBA Tournament will come from this group.
Tournament Bracket
Many games remain to be played before one can be crowned the 2025 FIBA Tourney Champion! Link to the Tourney Bracket, including the corresponding collegiate teams.
Below are each of the four regions of the tournament. My pre-tournament is for #2 Argentina (St. John’s) to come out on top at the end of the war.
Overall Tournament Bracket:
Tournament Summary
In the First Round, most counties favored to win managed to hold their own, though there were a few surprises as #12 Great Britain upset #5 Finland and #11 Hungary beat #6 South Sudan, both in the same region.
In the Second Round, twice-defending champions in Côte d’Ivoire put up a valiant effort in defeat against #1 France. The big upset of the round came when #10 Egypt took down #2 Argentina (which happened to be my pre-tourney pick.
The top teams fared well in the Sweet 16 and Elite 8, as all four top seeds (USA, France, Serbia, and Germany) as well as three of four 2nd-seeds (Australia, Canada, Spain) made it through.
The top four were too strong as all of them made it through to the Final Four, where overall top seed USA fell in to France while Germany overcame Serbia. In the 2025 FIBA Finals, it was France that pulled out the win in a tight thriller that came down to the final play.
Reflection
I knew I shouldn’t have picked #2 Argentina for the title! #1 France was pushed to the bring several times but managed to pull through in an incredible 2025 FIBA Tournament.