March Madness: A Bracket Full of Tournament Emojis

The yearly nationwide basketball competition is just now heating up. These are the emojis you’ll likely see in the starting lineup.

David Doochin

• 6 min read
March Madness: A Bracket Full of Tournament Emojis

Sunday, March 16 marked the start of the 2025 NCAA March Madness, the much-anticipated annual college basketball tournament that sees fans around the United States and beyond rallying behind their chosen teams as players try to drive, dribble, and hoop their way to victory.

With the official announcement of the participating teams on Selection Sunday, fans of the teams that made it into the bracket have already begun building hype for their respective favorites on social media and the internet—with no small help from emojis.

From emojis to represent the dozens of schools and their teams competing for the championship to ones that capture fan reactions to high-energy mid-game moments to others that symbolize the tournament itself, there’s no shortage of emojis to add to the fun and fervor of an already exciting basketball season.

Read on to learn more about the emojis you’ll likely see at tipoff this March Madness.

🏆 EMOJIS FOR THE MARCH MADNESS TOURNAMENT

The 🏀 Basketball is of course one of the most popular emojis that’s associated with, well, basketball—both during March Madness and regular season games and on all levels from amateur to college and all the way up to the NBA. It’s no surprise you’ll see it prominently across the digital landscape around this time of year. 

The 🏆 Trophy is another slam dunk of a March Madness emoji, the emblem of the ultimate victory that each team and fanbase vies for throughout the few weeks leading up to the championship game. The 👑 Crown, the 🏅 Sports Medal and the 🥇 1st Place Medal are also sometimes used to express the same hunger for—or celebration of—triumph in the tournament.

For a competition that grows in excitement as its number of teams exponentially shrinks, there’s often a lot of focus around the tournament’s numerical round names, giving the keycap digit emojis some time off the bench and in the game.

The 8️⃣ Keycap Digit 8 is a typical emoji for creating excitement around the Elite Eight round, for example, and the 4️⃣ Keycap Digit 4 is often used to represent the even more competitive Final Four. 

🐊 EMOJIS TO REPRESENT SCHOOLS AND TEAMS

The colleges and universities with basketball teams competing in March Madness have varied and diverse mascots, school colors, and traditions, giving plenty of opportunities for their students, alumni, and other fans to express their spirit with emojis in all sorts of creative ways.

🐅 EMOJIS FOR THE TOP-RANKED TEAMS

Since the four top-seeded teams—the ones considered to have had the best regular season performance—are among the teams ranked most likely to win the tournament, it’s not surprising to see a lot of anticipation around these schools on the internet and in digital conversation, especially expressed with emojis.

Many fans emojify the Blue Devils of Duke University, which many analysts and major betting markets predict could win the tournament, by using the 😈 Smiling Face with Horns together with a darker blue emoji like the 💙 Blue Heart or the 🔵 Blue Circle and sometimes white emojis like the 🤍 White Heart or ⚪ White Circle for the school’s colors. 

The fellow first-seeded Auburn University Tigers (who share a mascot with the Clemson University Tigers, the University of Missouri Tigers, and the University of Memphis Tigers, all also in this year’s tournament) are typically reflected as emojis with the 🐅 Tiger and the 🐯 Tiger Face,

Meanwhile, the University of Florida Gators have the (biologically distinct but almost visually indistinguishable) 🐊 Crocodile as their emoji stand-in.

Since these two top-seed schools sport the same colors, the 💙 Blue Heart or the 🔵 Blue Circle and the 🧡 Orange Heart and 🟠 Orange Circle are also oft-employed emojis by the fanbases for both universities.

@clifford IT’S GREAT TO BE A FLORIDA GATOR 🐊🏀 SEC CHAMPS 🏆 #TheCliffordShow #collegebasketball #floridagators ♬ original sound - Clifford Taylor IV

While the University of Houston Cougars, the fourth and final member of the number-one seeds, don’t have an actual cougar emoji to represent them—a problem faced, too, by the Brigham Young University Cougars and the Southern Illinois University Edwardsville Cougars—fans get creative by using the 🐾 Paw Prints or emojis of other felines large and small, like the similarly sized 🐆 Leopard and the much less imposing 🐈 Cat, which also work for the High Point University Panthers, the University of Arizona Wildcats, and the University of Kentucky Wildcats.

The University of Houston’s red and white colors make the ❤️ Red Heart, the 🔴 Red Circle, the 🤍 White Heart, and the ⚪ White Circle typical choices for the school as well.

👣 OTHER CLASSIC SCHOOL AND TEAM EMOJIS 

With 68 teams from all sorts of schools officially in the tournament, it makes sense to see a notable uptick in emojis of a whole range of categories and types to discuss March Madness.

Generally, schools whose mascots are animals or easily recognizable characters, figures, or objects are especially likely to have emoji equivalents that see spikes in usage during the tournament. Some prime examples include the 🦡 Badger for the University of Wisconsin Badgers, the 🦆 Duck for the University of Oregon Ducks, the 🦅 Eagle for the American University Eagles, the 🐻 Bear for the Baylor University Bears and the University of Montana Grizzlies, and the 🐢 Turtle for the University of Maryland Terrapins, among several others. 

Fans of the McNeese State University Cowboys often lay claim to the 🤠 Cowboy Hat Face (also one of the frequent emoji emblems of the NFL’s Dallas Cowboys), and those rooting for the St. Mary’s College Gaels, named for the school’s Irish heritage and the history of its founding, often use one of the obvious traditional symbols of Ireland, the ☘️ Shamrock, or its botanically nearly identical luck-bringing counterpart the 🍀 Four-Leaf Clover. And the use of the 🔥 Fire emoji to express support for the Liberty University Flames is to many also an obvious connection.

For colleges and universities who have one or more mascots without immediately evident emoji counterparts, fans and supporters have been known to invent more creative workarounds to show off their school pride. 

The official mascot of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, the generations-old rival of tournament darling Duke, is the Tar Heel, a callback to a class-based epithet in the state’s early history that became a moniker of pride for its people.

Classic emoji combinations for UNC students and supporters include the 🦶🏼 Foot or the 👣 Footprints paired with the 🩵 Light Blue Heart for the school’s “Carolina blue” color and with the 🐏 Ram for the school’s animal mascot (shared, too, by the Colorado State University Rams and the Virginia Commonwealth University Rams).

Outside of its 🐘 Elephant animal mascot, fans of the University of Alabama Crimson Tide often represent the school with a  ❤️ Red Heart or a 🔴 Red Circle paired with a 🌊 Water Wave, similar to how those cheering on St. John’s University Red Storm might pair those same red emojis with a 🌩️ Cloud with Lightning or a  ⛈️ Cloud with Lightning or Rain or with a ⚡ High Voltage emoji if they’re fans of the St. Francis University Red Flash. 

And whereas the name of the mascot for Purdue University, the Boilermakers, might not immediately call to mind an emoji, learning that the name draws on the school’s history in engineering and railroads and that their mascot is a replica of a Victorian-era locomotive that the school calls the “Boilermaker Special” explains why the 🚂 Locomotive often represents the school in emoji form alone or next to the 🆙 Up! Button as part of the Purdue rallying cry “Boiler Up!”

Overall, there are plenty of fun, inventive emoji combinations—including, of course, many we haven’t covered here—for fans of certain schools in the March Madness tournament to express their spirit and fandom. Keep an eye out for them as the tournament heats up; you’re bound to see them bouncing up down the digital court.

🫢 EMOJIS FOR FAN REACTIONS

Part of the thrill for fans of March Madness—and often much of the cause for turmoil—is all the nail-biters, buzzer-beaters, and unexpected underdog upsets that are so characteristic of such a competitive tournament. With major game moments can come extreme emotional volatility from those who have a lot at stake, whether bragging rights, pride, money or other bets, or some combination thereof. 

It’s no surprise then, that March Madness sees a lot of emotional reaction emojis online and in digital communication channels as fans respond in real time to the chaos, the drama, and the many ups and downs of college basketball.

Any praise-worthy play, from a well-executed defensive maneuver to a three-pointer to a game victory can elicit an emoji like the 😃 Grinning Face with Big Eyes, the 😍 Smiling Face with Heart-Eyes, or the 🥳 Partying Face.

If your favorite team lets you down or spikes your blood pressure with a missed free throw, an unwarranted foul, a display of bad teamwork or some other blunder, you might respond with an emoji like the 😭 Loudly Crying Face, the 😡 Enraged Face, or the 😰 Anxious Face with Sweat.

Other emojis that convey surprise or another reaction to a major new twist in a game, like the 😲 Astonished Face, the 🫢 Face with Open Eyes and Hand Over Mouth, or the 😳 Flushed Face, are perfect for moments when fans are on the edges of their seats.

There’s no wrong way to use an emoji in the context of March Madness. Whichever ones are on your roster, let them help you cheer on your favorite team all the way to the championship.