This Is March. Those three words have become popular to describe the chaos, excitement, and overall brilliance of the NCAA Basketball Tournament, otherwise known as March Madness. Sixty-eight of the best teams in college basketball, in both the men's and women's divisions, square off in a massive bracket-style tournament that determines who will become the National Champion.
Many sports fans consider March Madness to be the greatest event in sports, and it all starts with Selection Sunday. Conference tournaments will wrap up by Sunday, March 17th, and on that day, the bracket for the massive field of teams is finalized. From there, millions of fans will officially be able to make their March Madness brackets, and the chaos that is the NCAA Basketball Tournament will ensue.
So, when is Selection Sunday, how are teams selected, and how can you watch the bracket reveal? We will explain all of that below.
When is Selection Sunday?
Selection Sunday – for both men's college hoops and women's college basketball – will be on Sunday, March 17th. The men's bracket will be revealed at 6 p.m. ET. The teams making the women's tournament will be revealed after that, at 8 p.m. ET.
How to watch Selection Sunday
The bracket reveal for men's March Madness, coined the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship Selection Show, will be broadcast on CBS. Meanwhile, the women's side of things will be shown on ESPN under the title NCAA Women's Selection Special. You can watch Selection Sunday for both divisions using fuboTV.
Date: Sunday, March 17 | Time: 6 p.m. ET (men's) – 8 p.m. ET (women's)
TV channel: CBS (men's) – ESPN (women's) | Live stream: FuboTV (click for a free trial)
March Madness bracket explanation
For both the men's and women's tournaments, 68 teams are selected into the field. Teams that win their Conference Championship receive an automatic bid into March Madness. Currently, there are 32 conferences, and therefore, 32 teams automatically make their way into the tournament.
The remaining 36 teams are chosen as at-large bids. This means that the selection committee has to declare their regular seasons as impressive enough to warrant a spot in the tournament.
The selection committee is filled with 12 members who are athletic directors or conference commissioners. There is a different committee for the men's and women's divisions, and these members serve five-year terms. Five of the members come from each of the Power-Five schools, three of the members are selected from the seven highest-ranked non-autonomy conferences, and the final four members come from the other 20 conferences.
Teams can guarantee their fate with a Conference Championship win, while teams hoping for an at-large bid will have to sweat out Selection Sunday, one of the most anxiety-ridden days on the sports calendar. Fans will certainly question some of the selection committee's decisions, but they do a pretty good job of getting the right teams into March Madness.
In the men's division, March Madness will start on March 19th – just two days after Selection Sunday – with the First Four. The First Four on the women's side of things starts the following day on March 20th. After that is the Round of 64, the Round of 32, the Sweet 16, the Elite Eight, the Final Four, and finally, the National Championship Game.
The tournament was first played in 1939, and it has been played every year since except for in 2020, when it was canceled because of the COVID-19 pandemic. Parity is at a high right now in college basketball, which is sure to make for an entertaining March Madness tournament, and that starts with Selection Sunday.
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