Men's NCAA Tournament: What Makes a March Madness Cinderella Team, 2026 Options

It's finally here. The first round of the men's NCAA Tournament, affectionately dubbed as March Madness, will begin on Thursday, March 19. 

The 87th annual edition of the tournament will see the usual suspects try and win the national championship. But what truly makes the tournament special is how often we see smaller schools and underdogs make incredible runs, which is what really causes the madness. These underdogs are often called Cinderella teams, with fans trying to pick them out each year ahead of the tournament. 

But what characteristics make up a Cinderella? And are there similarities among all the past ones?

FOX Sports Research dove into the data and identified several traits that comprise a Cinderella. First, we've highlighted a few notable Cinderella teams in recent memory to set up our analysis. Let's take a look.

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All the teams below made it to at least the Elite Eight and were double-digit seeds in the tournament:

It's not often you see a team go 9-11 in conference play and then go on to make the tournament— let alone go dancing all the way to the Final Four. But that's just what the 2023-24 NC State team did, only making the field of 64 because it somehow won the ACC Tournament. For perspective, the Wolfpack were 50-1 to win the conference tourney, taking down the pre-tournament favorite North Carolina Tar Heels in the final. They took down a 6-seed in Texas Tech in the opening round and went on to beat (14) Oakland, (2) Marquette and (4) Duke before losing to (10) Purdue in the Final Four. 

(Photo by Tim