2022 Selection Sunday: Start time, date, schedule
Selection Sunday 2022 for the NCAA DI men’s basketball tournament is Sunday, March 13. The show time and television network will be announced at a later date.
| ROUND | DATE | CITY |
|---|---|---|
| Selection Sunday | March 13 | N/A |
| First Four | March 15-16 | Dayton, Ohio |
| First/Second | March 17 and 19 | Buffalo, New York |
| First/Second | March 17 and 19 | Cincinnati, Ohio |
| First/Second | March 17 and 19 | Fort Worth, Texas |
| First/Second | March 17 and 19 | Portland, Oregon |
| First/Second | March 18 and 20 | Greenville, South Carolina |
| First/Second | March 18 and 20 | Milwaukee, Wisconsin |
| First/Second | March 18 and 20 | Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania |
| First/Second | March 18 and 20 | San Diego, California |
| Sweet 16/Elite Eight | March 24 and 26 | San Antonio, Texas |
| Sweet 16/Elite Eight | March 24 and 26 | San Francisco, California |
| Sweet 16/Elite Eight | March 25 and 27 | Chicago, Illinois |
| Sweet 16/Elite Eight | March 25 and 27 | Philadelphia, Pennsylvania |
| Final Four | April 2 and 4 | New Orleans |
How are the teams selected for the bracket?
There are two ways that a team can earn a bid to the NCAA tournament. The 32 Division I conferences all receive an automatic bid, which they each award to the team that wins the postseason conference tournament. Regardless of how a team performed during the regular season, if they are eligible for postseason play and win their conference tournament, they receive a bid to the NCAA tournament. These teams are known as automatic qualifiers.
The second avenue for an invitation is an at-large bid. The selection committee (more on them in a second) convenes on Selection Sunday, after all regular season and conference tournament games are played, and decides which 36 teams that are not automatic qualifiers have the pedigree to earn an invitation to the tournament.
Here is the NCAA’s comprehensive guide to how teams are selected for the tournament.
What is the March Madness selection committee?
The 10-member NCAA Men’s Division I Basketball Committee is responsible for selecting, seeding and bracketing the field for the NCAA Tournament. School and conference administrators are nominated by their conference, serve five-year terms and represent a cross-section of the Division I membership.
How do they decide which teams get an at-large bid?
There are a multitude of stats and rankings that the Selection Committee takes into account, but there is no set formula that determines whether a team receives an at-large bid or not.
What happens once the teams are selected?
Once the field of 68 is finalized, each team is assigned a seed and placed in one of four regions, which determines their first-round matchups and their path to the championship.
What are seeds?
The NCAA men’s basketball tournament is made up of 68 teams. On Selection Sunday, before any tournament game is played, those teams are ranked 1 through 68 by the Selection Committee, with the best team in college basketball — based on regular season and conference tournament performance — sitting at No. 1. Four of those teams are eliminated in the opening round of the tournament (known as the First Four), leaving us with a field of 64 for the first round.
Those 64 teams are split into four regions of 16 teams each, with each team being ranked 1 through 16. That ranking is the team’s seed.
In order to reward better teams, first-round matchups are determined by pitting the top team in the region against the bottom team (No. 1 vs. No. 16). Then the next highest vs. the next lowest (No. 2 vs. No. 15), and so on. In theory, this means that the 1 seeds have the easiest opening matchup in the bracket.
How to watch March Madness:
Every single March Madness game will be broadcast on either TBS, TNT, TruTV or CBS. You can also stream every game on March Madness Live.
How can you participate in March Madness?
By filling out a bracket! Our Bracket Challenge Game, the official bracket game of the NCAA, will open immediately after the committee announces the field on Selection Sunday. The brackets will lock before the first game of the first round begins, so get your picks in before then. How hard is filling out a bracket? Well no one has ever gotten a perfect bracket, but that shouldn’t stop you from trying.