When is Selection Sunday 2018?

Every March, the NCAA basketball think tank comes together for Selection Sunday; the day which officially signals the start of March Madness. Selection Sunday for 2018 is being held on Sunday, March 11th at 6PM ET (3PM PT) — one day earlier than 2017.

Selection Sunday is March 11, 2018

March Madness isn’t a new flu strain, it’s another name for the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball tournament and Selection Sunday is the official event when the Committee that oversees the tournament announces the 68 team field that will compete in said tournament.

Unofficially, this is when all the college basketball fanatics start updating their previously blank NCAA Tournament Brackets, printing out the brackets with the pairings out, filling out their predictions and start betting on the NCAA tournament with Matchbook.

Sixty-eight teams is a lot of teams, but there’s always teams that are snubbed on that particular Sunday. Picking the best basketball teams for March Madness is not unlike inviting guests to a wedding. If you invite Margaret, you really should be inviting Candace, too (even though you aren’t). So as much as the NCAA committee tries to be fair and the process created to keep it fair, determining the field of teams isn’t going to make everyone happy — especially Candace.

While Candace finds out she isn’t invited from a phone call from Betty, at least it isn’t filmed live. Many of the “bubble” teams that don’t make the field are being captured on film. That’s because the networks televising the “Big Dance” announcements travel around the country to capture the reactions of the players and coaches of those teams. Either they they hear that their team is going to the Big Dance, or they sit there quietly, disappointed and wondering what what else they could have done to dance in March.

The March Madness Selection, Seeding Process

The NCAA breaks up the selection process into four parts. The first step is automatically done — where 32 NCAA basketball teams get automatic berths because they won their Division Tournaments. That’s the easiest part of Selection Sunday. The next part is much harder, that’s choosing the remaining 36 best “at-large” teams looking at their records, schedules, competition, and overall performance. Once the field is set, the third part is seeding those 68 teams. The fourth and final step will be placing those seeded teams into quadrants (East, West, North, Souht) of the March Madness bracket.

If you’re interested in watching this all play out, TBS will televise Selection Sunday on March 11th at 6 PM Eastern Time. Further into the month on Saturday, March 31 TBS will also be the channel where you can watch the 2018 NCAA Final Four (March Madness Semifinals) as well as the NCAA Championship Game on Monday, April 2.

Update: Here’s the date for Selection Sunday 2019