CBS Announces Game Times for 2021 NCAA Tournament
Game times for the 2021 edition of ‘March Madness were announced by CBS Sports on Wednesday as college basketball continues to gear up for The NCAA Tournament in Indianapolis.
CBS Sports, the broadcast partner for the NCAA Tournament, released the game times and noted the channels that will carry the games. The dates for the tournament were released earlier this winter. Aside from a later start to the tournament overall, the TV schedule generally looks the same.
The 2021 Tournament, which will be held entirely in the state of Indiana to help the tournament adhere to COVID-19 protocols, will begin on Thursday, March 18, with all four ‘First Four’ games played.
From there, games will be played at six sites in Indiana, two of which are outside Indianapolis — Mackey Arena, the home of Purdue Basketball in West Lafayette, and Assembly Hall, the home of Indiana basketball in Bloomington.
First-round games will be held at those two venues, In addition to the four Indianapolis venues — Bankers Life Fieldhouse, Hinkle Fieldhouse, Indiana Farmers Coliseum and Lucas Oil Stadium, the last of which will host the Final Four.
After the first round, the rest of the tournament will be exclusively in Indianapolis.
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In current Bracketology at both CBSSports.com and ESPN.com, the Big 12 is expected to send seven teams to the NCAA Tournament.
First-round games will be played on March 19-20, followed by second-round games on March 21-22.
After that, the Sweet 16 will be played March 27-28, with the Elite 8 played March 29-30.
The Final Four will be played April 3 and April 5.
You can find Matthew Postins on Twitter @PostinsPostcard. Send him a tweet with your question to be included in this week’s Big 12 Basketball Mailbag, which appears each Friday during the conference season.
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