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Many sports use a tournament format to decide their champion, including professional sports. The "Final Four Contest" of college basketball refers to the semifinal round of the Division I Men's or Women's Basketball Tournament. In this round, there are four teams left, and two games are played to determine which two teams will head to the finals.

The words " Final Four " belong only to college basketball. In fact, if you watch college basketball you will frequently hear the term, especially from CBS, which uses the phrase"Road to the Final Four" in its coverage.

Making it to the Final Four means that a team won its first four tournament games, and it only has to win two more to be the national champions. A team that reaches this point in the tournament is already envisioning the hanging of a National Championship banner from the rafters of its home arena, which is a common tradition.

As mentioned before, the Final 4 are played in April, but they are still full of the March Madness syndrome. Typically, the men's semifinal games are played on the first Saturday in April, and the women's are played on the first Sunday. The winners of those games move on to face each other in their respective championship games, which are played on the subsequent Monday.

While the National Football League's Super Bowl receives attention from virtually every red-blooded American every year, the NCAA's annual college basketball tournament remains in relative obscurity among the ranks of the general public but not the sports betting public because, contrary to popular belief, the Super Bowl is not the top sports betting event of the year.

That distinction belongs to the NCAA's college basketball tournament, also known as March Madness. While the Super Bowl is simply one game played one night in January between two teams, the NCAA's tournament is a series of five rounds featuring 64 teams, played over the course of three weeks. And, unlike the Super Bowl, the tournament is chock full of competitive, exciting, even gut-wrenching games

With so many games (and so many betting options) available, it's easy for the casual sports bettor to become overwhelmed and lose focus on the task at handwinning. And although adhering to the following ten tips will not guarantee that you'll be retiring this April, they'll certainly put you on the right track toward not going away mad after your March Madness maneuvers.

• Tip #1 - Bet what you know
• Tip #2 - Be a sponge for info
• Tip #3 - Become an expert
• Tip #4 - Think about your own line before you see the Vegas Line
• Tip #5 - Be confident in the underdogs of your selection

The term March Madness, today, is synonymous with the College Basketball Tournament, but the nickname was first used to describe another basketball tournament -- the annual Illinois High School Association tournament. Henry V. Porter is credited with coining the phrase in his 1939 article for the Illinois Interscholastic magazine, "March Madness."

March Madness was not used to describe the College Basketball tournament until 1982, when Brent Musburger, a CBS reporter, used the term during the telecast of a tournament game. College basketball fans and the media have been using the term ever since.

Today, after a court battle over the ownership of the term, March Madness is co-owned by the College and IHSA through the March Madness Athletic Association.