March Madness is here and it’s time for math! What? March Madness is about college men’s basketball, right? What does that have to do with math?

If you look at it as just basketball, it doesn’t have much to do with math. But if you look closer, you’ll find many fun opportunities to help children learn math. Here are some ideas.


  • Discuss how many people on one team can play at one time. (5) How many teams are playing at once? (2) How many people in all are on the court when playing the game? (10) Practice counting by fives and tens.
  • How many points can you score with one basket? (2 or 3) Practice counting by twos and threes up to 90/100.

shooting a basket

More Than/Less Than

  • Team A has 8 points. Team B has 5 points. Which team has the greater number of points? The fewer number of points?
  • Player A is 6 feet tall. Player B is 7 feet tall. Who is taller? Shorter?
  • Team A has 3 fouls. Team B has 1 foul. Who has more fouls? Less?


  • Team A has 10 points. Team B has 6 points. How many points does Team B have to get to catch up to team A?
  • When a team has the ball, they have 30 seconds to make a basket. If 10 seconds has gone by, how much time do they have left?
  • There are 16 teams in the beginning of the tournament. If there are 4 teams left, how many teams are out?

Converting Inches and Feet

  • Basketball nets are 10 feet above the ground. If there are 12 inches in a foot, how many inches high is the net? (120 inches)

basketball net

  • Player A is 72 inches tall. You know that there are 12 inches in a foot. How many feet tall is Player A? (6 feet)

Other fun ideas

  • If you know how tall a basketball player is, try and figure out how much taller he is than you. How many of you could fit into one of him?

basketball player

  • Knowing that the dimensions of a college basketball court are 94 feet long and 50 feet wide, what is the perimeter (all sides added together)? (288 feet) The area (length x width)? (4700 feet)

basketball court

  • When the stats come up on the screen, you can add up the assists, points, and rebounds.

Have your kids do the math on paper or have them use our Primary Calculator!

What are some other ideas you can come up with to integrate math and basketball? Let us know at!