March Madness Monday: Create the PERFECT bracket w/ Flippity

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March Madness Monday: Create the PERFECT bracket w/ Flippity

Everyone around this time of year is trying to create brackets in their classrooms.  Some create these brackets to mirror the NCAA Basketball Tournament which happens every March.

Other educators use these brackets to add some friendly competition to their classroom instruction.  They may also use brackets to rank characters in a story, make choices based on voting, rank student responses or projects, etc...

When I was teaching, I could NEVER find a quality bracket maker that was easy to customize.  Then I found this one on flippity.net!  It's amazingly simple to use, especially with its ease of integration with Google Sheets.


Once you grab the Template, it will automatically prompt you to create a copy.  Once you have created your copy, you can fully edit the template with your own content.  Names, content, pictures, etc.

Here is more information and directions straight from the template instructions: 

Want to Make Your Own Tournament Bracket?

Step 1: Modify the Google Spreadsheet Template

  • Make a copy of this template. (You'll need to sign-in with your Google account.)
  • Edit the Competitors.
    • You may use anywhere from 4 to 64 competitors.
    • Byes will automatically be added to fill up 4, 8, 16, 32, or 64-competitor brackets.
    • Place the strongest competitors at the top of the list. The bracket will automatically match high-seeds against low-seeds to ensure the most competitive matches occur at the end of the tournament.
  • Change the title of your tournament by changing the name of the worksheet (at the bottom).
  • Do not edit any cell with a blue background.

Step 2: Publish Your Spreadsheet

  • Go to File, Publish to the Web…, then click Publish.

Step 3: Get Your Flippity.net Link

  • Click on the Get the Link Here tab of the template (at the bottom).
  • Click on the Flippity.net link to use your tournament bracket.
    • Click on a competitor to advance them to the next round. Ctrl + click a competitor to erase.
    • Press "Shuffle" to randomize the bracket. Press "Clear" to erase all but the first round. Press "Reload" to return to a seeded bracket.

Step 4: Bookmark and Share

  • Bookmark the page to find it again quickly.

Frequently Asked Questions

Can I make an NCAA March Madness tournament bracket?

  • Yes, but a March Madness bracket is already seeded and broken into regions, so you'd need to list the teams in the order of their seeds. For the 2017 tournament you would enter in this order: Villanova (1), Gonzaga(1), Kansas(1), North Carolina(1), Duke(2), Arizona(2), Louisville(2), Kentucky(2), Baylor(3), etc.
  • You cannot use more than 64 teams so you won't be able to show the "First Four."

Can I save my progress?

  • Sorry, no. You'll need to complete your tournanment in one session or re-create the results each time you load the page.
  • (If you shuffle the competitors you won't have any way of recreating those match-ups again later.)

Can I use pictures in my bracket?

  • Yes, just paste the URL (address) of a picture you find on the web in the appropriate cell.
Now go have some friendly competition in your class and I hope your NCAA March Madness bracket is turning out better than mine! :)  Here's my reaction to the first round of the 2018 tournament:




























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