March Madness Overtime Rules Explained

March Madness Overtime Rules Explained

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College basketball enthusiasts are buzzing as the 2022-23 NCAA Tournament kicks off. There's nothing more thrilling than watching two collegiate squads giving it their all for 40 minutes with a shot at national glory on the line. Having said that, sometimes an extra frame is needed to see who advances to the next stage of March Madness.

Here's a look at how the March Madness overtime rules work.

March Madness Overtime Rules

March Madness overtime rules are no different from that of the NCAA regular season. If two teams are tied after regulation, they'll clash in a five-minute overtime period that begins with a jump ball. From there, whoever leads after the final buzzer is declared the winner.

There's no limit to how many overtime periods an NCAA Tournament game can have. If the two sides are still tied after that, they'll play another five-minute overtime frame and so on. Teams are also given one 30-second timeout in each of the extra frames.

All fouls — both personal and team — carry over into overtime, along with the bonus.

Longest March Madness Overtime

For those curious, there are two games that share the distinction of being the longest in March Madness history. North Carolina State and Canisius initially set the record with a quadruple overtime affair in the first round of the 1956 NCAA tournament before St. Joseph's and Utah matched it five years later.

However, the longest game in all of college basketball history took place in 1981 as Cincinnati needed seven overtime periods to vanquish Bradley.

Devon Platana is not a FanDuel employee. In addition to providing DFS gameplay advice, Devon Platana also participates in DFS contests on FanDuel using his personal account, username PepeSilvia0. While the strategies and player selections recommended in his articles are his personal views, he may deploy different strategies and player selections when entering contests with his personal account. The views expressed in their articles are the author's alone and do not necessarily reflect the views of FanDuel.