If you’re planning on filling out a bracket this year, there’s a way to do some good while you’re deciding which double-digit seed will go on a Cinderella run or debating whether or not to take UConn to win it all again.
Hoops for Hannah, a bracket challenge started by a Connecticut family, uses March Madness passion to help raise money for brain tumor research.
The challenge was created by the Taylor family, in honor of Hannah Taylor, a diehard UConn basketball fan who passed away in 2012 at age 32 following a battle with brain cancer.
It started as a small group of family and friends, but has grown over the years. Last year, 170 people filled out brackets while more made donations. There’s no entry fee, and there is a $1,000 prize to the winner. Hannah’s sister, Chandra, said last year the winnings were split between a family friend and a grandmother of 11 from Kansas who is a brain tumor survivor. In all, the family has raised more than $90,000 for the Musella Foundation for Brain Tumor Research.
Chandra said a bracket challenge was the perfect way to honor her sister.
“Hannah was a diehard UConn men’s basketball fan. Just incredibly passionate, loved the game, played high school basketball. So the timing and connection to our family and a piece of our childhood just really made sense as a way we could continue to do something Hannah would have cared about, while also giving back in hopes of preventing this illness for others,” she said.
@gregcote Brackets funding Brain Tumor Research. Free entry, $1,000 1st prize – please share!https://t.co/kzgC5Q80eL pic.twitter.com/qLTHAOD0Ee
— HoopsForHannah (@HoopsForHannah) March 18, 2026
Chandra said her family always came together around March Madness, and that Hannah’s passion for basketball was infectious. The two sisters and their three brothers would occasionally skip school to watch games during the first few days of the tournament and excitement was always sky-high when UConn had a chance to make a run.
“Before picture-in-picture, my dad would stack two TVs together so you could watch multiple games at once,” Chandra said. “We always had a family bracket with a prize of not only family bragging rights, but a gift certificate to the local bookstore. So March Madness was just part of how we grew up.”
Hannah shared a birthday with Tate George — and the Huskies legend reached out to her with well wishes after their father, Dave, sent him a message following her diagnosis.
Dave fills out a bracket every year in honor of Rosie, the former family dog, and makes the picks he thinks Hannah would make. It ended up winning one of the first years of the challenge.
Anyone interested in joining the bracket challenge can enter on the CBS Sports website. Donations can be made to hoopsforhannah@comcast.net on PayPal, or sent to Hoops For Hannah, PO Box 964, North Canaan, Conn., 06018. The family says 100 percent of donations go to the Musella Foundation.
