When Are Men’s March Madness Brackets Due for Contests and Pools?

Nate Cunningham | Mar 17, 2025

The Florida Gators celebrate after defeating the Tennessee Volunteers in the 2025 SEC Championship Game at Bridgestone Arena. / Steve Roberts-Imagn Images

It’s finally here. March Madness. The NCAA tournament is about to begin, which means right now is the time for fans—casual and diehard—to get their brackets filled out and submitted in their pools. 

Most will create a group or a pool online, while some prefer to go old school with paper brackets. 

If you’re submitting a hard copy bracket, then you need to reach out to whoever is running it to determine the submission deadline. 

But if you’re like most of us and using a site like CBS or Yahoo!, then all submission deadlines and rules are clearly stated. 

We’re going to run through all the major sites to make sure you get those picks in on time—whether you’ve made them based on mascots or on some analytical deep dive. 

Official Deadline for Submitting March Madness Brackets

Typically, brackets are due after the First Four, but before the tipoff of the first game of the first round. 

That means Thursday, March 20 at roughly 12 p.m. ET. 

So all your picks, for every round, must be submitted by then. 

Site	Deadline for Submission
ESPN	12:15 p.m. ET
CBS	12:00 p.m. ET
Yahoo!	12:15 p.m. ET
NCAA	12:15 p.m. ET

Deadlines for Major March Madness Bracket Contests

Each of the major sites handles their bracket games a bit differently. Some will allow users to make changes up until the minute of the opening tipoff for the first game. Depending on the schedule, that could be 12:10 p.m. ET or 12:15 p.m. ET. 

Other sites make it a bit more simple, locking entries at 12 p.m. ET. There’s always a chance that some late-breaking news could come out after that deadline but before tipoff, but something like that is usually pretty rare. 

Second-Chance Brackets: When Can You Enter?

Second-chance bracket games come in two main varieties. Each game gives players an extra opportunity to win. Which is good, because the odds of picking each game correctly is 1 in 9.2 quintillion. (9,233,372,036,854,775,808 to be exact). 

The first is ESPN’s Sweet 16 challenge. In this game, players are allowed to create a new bracket beginning with the Sweet 16. The odds of picking all those games correctly? One in 32,768. That’s practically a sure thing. 

The other variation is one that usually pops up in office pools. This game allows users to submit two brackets. If they so choose (like, let’s say the team you picked to win it all gets upset in the first round), they can pull their original bracket for their backup. 

Both brackets must still be submitted before the first game begins, but it provides some extra life to individuals who had a rough first round. 

What Happens If You Miss the Bracket Deadline?

Unfortunately, whether you entered into a free or paid bracket group, if you miss the deadline, you’re out of luck. 

This is absolutely the case if the bracket game is run online. I mean, maybe enough groveling with the person running your hard-copy bracket pool might get your entry reinstated. 

But the morale of the story is this: There's a lot on the line, so be on time. 

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