Joe Lunardi

Joe Lunardi is the resident Bracketologist for ESPN. He invented Bracketology and has been projecting the NCAA Tournament field for ESPN.com since its inception. Each year, Lunardi breaks down the Tournament hopefuls, provides year-round team analysis, and offers real-time, in-season bracket updates of potential seedings and pairings. His frequent appearances from the “Bracket Bunker” have become a staple of college basketball telecasts across ESPN networks.

During the 2019-20 season, Lunardi premiered The Bracketology Show on ESPN+, which offered a weekly deep dive into the projected NCAA bracket and also gave viewers direct access to players, coaches and administrators as they awaited their postseason fate. It was a fascinating look at the “how” and “why” of team movement both in and out of the likely NCAA field.

Prior to joining ESPN full-time, Lunardi spent more than 30 years as head of communications and marketing for his alma mater, Saint Joseph’s University.

Lunardi was raised on Saint Joseph’s and Philadelphia Big 5 basketball, writing for the Philadelphia Bulletin and Delaware County (Pa.) Daily Times before becoming a long-time editor with the Blue Ribbon College Basketball Yearbook. The addition by Blue Ribbon of a post-season NCAA Tournament Guide in 1995 led directly to the creation of Bracketology, and a digital version of the Guide is now published every Selection Sunday on ESPN.com.

Lunardi continues as color analyst for Saint Joseph’s broadcasts on ESPN+. He has covered more than 1,100 Hawks’ games in his career and trails only the forever-flapping Hawk mascot in witnessing the most SJU contests all-time.

Joe and his wife, Pam, a 1984 Saint Joseph’s graduate, reside in Drexel Hill, Pennsylvania, and have two daughters.

His first book, Bracketology: March Madness, College Basketball, and the Creation of a National Obsession, was published by Triumph Books in March 2021.