When Does the NCAA Tournament Start?
The NCAA Tournament gets started on Tuesday, March 13 with the First Four games in Dayton, Ohio.
Selection Sunday will be March 11 and the 68 teams competing in the tournament will all be revealed, along with the regions they will be playing in. From there, eight teams play four "play-in games" (two on Tuesday and two on Wednesday) to trim the field to 64 teams. The Selection Committee determines who will play in the First Four games based off its 1-68 seeding of all the teams in the tournament. The four lowest-seed teams to earn an automatic bid by winning their conference tournament and the four lowest-seeded at-large teams are the eight teams chosen for those games.
The Round of 64 will begin Thursday, March 15, and 16 games will be played that day as well as Friday, March 16. On Saturday and Sunday, eight games will be played each day to set the Sweet 16.
Games during the first weekend of the tournament will be played in Boise, Charlotte, Dallas, Detroit, Nashville, Pittsburgh, San Diego and Wichita. For the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight, Omaha (Midwest), Atlanta (South), Boston (East) and Los Angeles (West) will serve as the regional host cities.
The Final Four will get started March 31 and the National Championship will be played April 2. Those final three games will be played in the Alamodome in San Antonio.
