March Madness is here, and as we put this post together on Tuesday afternoon, the first trickle of conference tournament action has already started with the Big South Tournament getting under way in Conway, South Carolina. Over the next 36 days, we’ll celebrate postseason basketball with our annual visual tribute from 300+ teams down to one, the Circle of March. Assuming our math is spot on, there are 310 Division I teams still “alive” for the NCAA title this season — 37 have already been eliminated for a variety of reasons (ineligibility, failure to qualify for or no conference tournament, not in an auto-bid league, independent, etc.). Those teams are listed below the Circle. The rest of the contenders will slowly be whittled away on a daily basis until we’re left with 68 on Selection Sunday and of course just one team standing tall on the morning of April 9.

To make this year’s CoM a bit more entertaining, we’ve built the logos of all 310 teams into a number of spatially-similar groupings within the Circle. For example, in the area approaching 11 o’clock below, there are a number of images that prominently use birds as their school’s logo. See how many of these groupings you can determine (note: make sure to click on the image for a larger view) — the first dozen folks who tweet at us (@rushthecourt) or e-mail us (rushthecourt@yahoo.com) with 12 or more distinct groupings will receive a free RTC t-shirt. For the person who identifies the most distinct logo groupings, we’ll have a grand prize.

Welcome to March Madness…

How Many Distinct Groupings of Logos Are in the Circle of March?

Teams Eliminated From National Title Contention (03.04.13)

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