Erik Gunther dot com

It’s that time of year when brackets and bubbles fast break their way to the forefront of sports fans’ minds. Yes, it’s March, and we’re ready for March Madness (+147%). Searches on “ncaa basketball” slammed the Buzz with a 42% increase and promises to rise as we head into all-important Selection Sunday.

We saw a bevy of spikes after a busy weekend in college basketball. Here are a few that filled our net…

“Bracketology” lends an almost scientific air to the process of nerdy hoops fans predicting the seeds of the 64 teams that will make up the NCAA Tournament. The new term gets some play, but old standby “rpi,” short for rating percentage index, is always hot around tournament time. Searches on “college basketball rpi” (+25%) and “rpi rankings” (+20%) bounced up over the last week. We’ll continue to follow the bouncing ball of buzz as the most exciting time of year in college sports tips off.