- The NCAA has three divisions of college basketball programs. Division II and III are levels of college basketball that are below that of Division I. Division III is for smaller colleges that do not use basketball as a source of revenue and often these programs do not offer players scholarships to attend their school. Division II offers an option to student-athletes who may not be talented enough to play Division I basketball, with scholarships available. Division I is the top level of intercollegiate basketball, with the schools possessing superior facilities and large athletic department budgets along with more scholarships for student-athletes.
- Division III is comprised of more than 440 schools and is the largest of the three NCAA divisions. Division II has 282 schools within its ranks and Division I has 347 schools that compete in 32 conferences. Conferences such as the Big East, the Atlantic Coast Conference, the Pacific Ten Conference and the Big Ten Conference have member schools that have highly successful basketball programs. The scholarships offered in the these basketball programs allow many students chances to go to college that would have not had the opportunities.
- The all-time winningest college basketball program is the University of Kentucky, which has accumulated more than 1,960 victories. North Carolina is second, a few behind Kentucky's pace, while Kansas is not far off the top two. The team that has won the NCAA tournament the most times and been declared the national champion is the University of California at Los Angeles. UCLA has won the title 11 times while Kentucky has won seven. The top women's college basketball program is the University of Tennessee, which boasts eight championships to Connecticut's five.
- The most important individual to a college basketball program is the head coach. Coaches that have the ability to recruit top basketball players to attend their schools and then have the capacity to win games with these players are a valuable commodity. This leads to some coaches who have had this type of success being rewarded with lucrative contracts. Coaches such as these are assets to their schools because of their winning ways, which brings money flowing into these colleges through sales of tickets to games, donations from proud alumni and boosters and merchandising.
- The college basketball season begins in November for both the men and women's programs and stretches all the way to the final game of the NCAA tournament at the start of April. Elite teams in Division I will often play lesser schools, some even from Division II, before beginning conference play against other member schools in January. Many conferences have their own tournament at the end of conference play in March, with the winner getting an automatic bid to the NCAA tournament.
