March Madness brackets are being revealed.
The men’s bracket was revealed on the Selection Sunday show on CBS. The women’s tournament bracket will be unveiled at 8 p.m. on ESPN.
Here's the latest on this Selection Sunday:
Women’s tournament bracket to be revealed soon
The women’s tournament bracket will be unveiled at the top of the hour on ESPN.
Who is on the bubble for the women’s tournament?
One of the big questions heading into the women’s bracket reveal is whether the Ivy League will put three teams in.
Harvard won the automatic bid, leaving Columbia and Princeton on the bubble. In addition to those two teams, the rest of the bubble includes teams like Iowa State, Washington, Virginia Tech, Colorado, James Madison, Saint Joseph’s and Minnesota.
West Virginia, Boise State, Indiana left out of men’s tourney
Boise State and Indiana are on the outside looking in after Texas and North Carolina squeaked into the men’s NCAA Tournament.
And West Virginia may be an even more surprising omission. The Mountaineers were not even one of the last four in when ESPN, Sports Illustrated and the Washington Post made their projections. They were expected to make it more comfortably than that.
SEC shatters record
The Southeastern Conference shattered the previous record for getting the most teams into the NCAA Tournament. The previous mark was 11 set by the Big East in 2011.
The SEC topped it by three, with Auburn, Florida, Alabama, Tennessee, Texas A&M, Kentucky, Ole Miss, Missouri, Mississippi State, Georgia, Vanderbilt, Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas all getting in. Only LSU and South Carolina were left out from the league best known as a football powerhouse.
Men’s West Region
Men’s Midwest Region
Men’s East Region
Men’s South Region
Conference realignment slightly alters bids
Each conference receives an automatic bid to both the men’s and women’s tournaments, and then the rest of those fields are filled by the committee’s at-large selections.
The recent demise of the Pac-12 lowered the number of automatic qualifiers to 31, leaving room for 37 at-large teams.
Hey football fans, the SEC is a basketball power, too
The Southeastern Conference, normally a football power, has been unusually strong this season in basketball.
Its two newest members — Oklahoma and Texas — are both on the bubble, but if they get in, the SEC could have as many as 14 of its 16 teams in the men's tournament.
March Madness is ready for its ‘Cinderella
’
A high seed that makes a run to the Sweet 16 or beyond is affectionately called “Cinderella.”
Five No. 11 seeds have advanced to the men’s Final Four: LSU (1986), George Mason (2006), VCU (2011), Loyola Chicago (2018) and N.C. State (2024).
Villanova is considered the ultimate Cinderella — the Wildcats won the 1985 NCAA Tournament by upsetting top-seeded Georgetown as a No. 8 seed, the lowest to ever win the title.
Finding a Cinderella is tougher on the women’s side. No teams lower than a No. 3 seed have won the women’s event. It happened three times: 1994 North Carolina, 1997 Tennessee and 2023 LSU.
Men’s NCAA Tournament schedule
Women’s NCAA Tournament schedule
Men’s tournament locations
The First Four will be played in Dayton, Ohio. The first and second rounds are in Cleveland; Denver; Lexington, Kentucky; Milwaukee; Providence, Rhode Island; Raleigh, North Carolina; Seattle; and Wichita, Kansas.
The regional semifinals (Sweet 16) and finals (Elite Eight) will take place in Newark, New Jersey (East Region); Atlanta (South); Indianapolis (Midwest); and San Francisco (West). The tournament ends with the Final Four and championship game at the Alamodome in San Antonio.
Women’s tournament locations
The women’s First Four is played at campus sites, which also will host first- and second-round games.
The Sweet 16 and Elite Eight games will be held at two venues — one in Birmingham, Alabama, and the other in Spokane, Washington.
The Final Four and championship game will be at Amalie Arena in Tampa, Florida.
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AP March Madness: https://apnews.com/hub/march-madness