Selection Sunday is always held the Sunday before the NCAA Tournament begins. But when is Selection Sunday 2021?
Selection Sunday 2021 is set for Sunday, March 14, 2021. The time, schedule, and additional information about the show will be released at a later date.
What is Selection Sunday?
Selection Sunday is the day college basketball fans look forward to for a full year, and in the case of 2021, two full years.
When the NCAA Tournament was cancelled in 2020, it meant we lost Selection Sunday, too. Some of us have been in mourning since.
What is Selection Sunday? It’s the day when the entire men’s NCAA Division I Tournament bracket is revealed, including the 32 automatic qualifiers from the conference tournaments and 36 at-large bids determined by the selection committee, culminating in a 68-team field. Seedings, game locations, game times, and every other detail of the competition are unveiled, too.
This year, though, we already know the locations of all the games, or at least what city and area they’ll be in. Because of the pandemic, the NCAA has moved the 2021 Men’s NCAA Tournament all to Indianapolis and other nearby venues in Indiana in an effort to reduce travel and complications. Games will be held at Lucas Oil Stadium, Bankers Life Fieldhouse, Indiana Farmers Coliseum, Hinkle Fieldhouse (Butler), Mackey Arena (Purdue, West Lafayette), and Assembly Hall (Indiana, Bloomington).
“We’re not naïve about how hard this is gonna be,” NCAA president Mark Emmert said. “The pandemic is still very much alive and it’s going to be in March … but we owe this opportunity to provide a healthy, safe environment.”
The dates for almost all of the rounds of the 2021 NCAA Tournament are not yet determined, though the Final Four is set for Saturday, April 3, and the national championship game is scheduled for Monday, April 5. Traditionally, the First Four is played on the Tuesday and Wednesday following Selection Sunday, with the first round of the tournament tipping off on the ensuing Thursday.
