March has arrived, and soon enough, madness will follow. As we watch Cinderella stories, breakout players get their chance to shine, and brackets fall apart, these college teams will travel across the country in hopes of becoming national champions.
If you haven’t followed March Madness before, it’s the single-elimination NCAA Division I basketball tournament where 68 of the strongest teams in the country battle it ou and, after seven gritty rounds, one team remains standing as the national champion. This year, it will be even more fun to watch as our Villanova basketball team is among the schools in the tournament bracket.
Brackets for both the men’s and women’s teams were announced on March 15, or Selection Sunday, and until then, some of the lower-level teams competed to earn a spot. In other words, on March 15, the teams deemed the 64 greatest from across the leagues in college basketball were divided by the NCAA college basketball committee.
The March tradition of the “First Four” will begin only a few days after Selection Sunday, with the men playing on March 17 and March 18 and the women playing on March 18 and March 19. The First Four features the four lowest-seeded automatic qualifiers and four lowest-seeded at-large teams. These teams will face off for two days. Those teams will play in Dayton with the University of Dayton as host, while the women’s teams will play on the campus courts of the top 16 seeds. The exact location is usually announced after Selection Sunday.
Ultimately, the winners of these initial games move on to the first round of 64, and the real madness begins on March 17 once the first round is underway.
The men will play the first round on March 19 and March 20, with games happening across the country. The arena options are vast: The KeyBank Center in Buffalo, The Bon Secours Wellness Arena at Greenville, The Moda Center in Portland, The Benchmark International Area in Tampa, The Viejas Arena in San Diego or The Enterprise Arena in Saint Louis. Some games will even be underway at our own Xfinity Mobile arena in Philadelphia. These games will be hosted by local universities and athletic divisions. The Wildcats will be heading to the Viejas Arena to face off against Utah State.
The second round begins with the remaining 32 teams on March 21 and 22. These teams will play in the same venues as those of the first round and continue to fight until there are 16 teams left.
The tournament really begins to heat up during the third round, also known as the Sweet Sixteen. Underground players and teams begin to take the spotlight, and most people’s brackets will prove to be once again, incorrect. These games will take place on March 26 and 27. If Villanova is one of the remaining sixteen teams, it could play at either the Toyota Center in Houston Texas, the SAP Center in San Jose California, the United Center in Chicago Illinois or the Capitol One Area in Washington D.C. Similarly to the last round, these games will be hosted by local universities.
Unlike the men’s, a lot of the locations for the women’s tournament were not announced so far in advance. During the first and second round, the top 16 seeds host the games, and because these teams have not yet been selected, women’s fans are left waiting to see. At their Selection Sunday watch party, the Villanova women’s team found out that they will first be facing off against Texas Tech on March 20.
Afterwards, the Sweet Sixteen will be played on March 27 and 28 at either the Dickies Arena in Fort Worth Texas or the Golden 1 Center in Sacramento California. The remaining teams will battle it out during the Elite Eight on March 29 and 30. These games will also have the same location.
The highly competitive Final Four will be the next arena change for both tournaments. If either Villanova team fights their way to this semi-final round, the games would take place for the women at the Mortgage Matchup Center in Phoenix, and the men would play at the Lucas Oil Stadium in Indianapolis. The first four men’s teams will play on April 2 and the women on April 3.
Finally, the National Championship, bringing both March Madness and the college basketball season to a close, will be played on April 4 for the men’s championship and April 5 for the women’s.
Whether you love basketball, competition, Villanova or all of the above, March is the best time of the year (especially when your team is finally in the tournament).
