Recomended bookmakers

up to 5000 USDT Visit

Visit

Up to 300 USD Visit

Due to two factors, the NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament is commonly referred to as “March Madness”: it’s typically held in March and attracts a lot of media attention and fan interest, making it one of the most important sporting events in the USA.

The tournament’s 86th annual edition will start in mid-March and end in San Antonio at the start of April.

Where and When Will the 2025 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament Be Held?

March 18, 2025, is when the 2025 NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament will get underway. The championship game will take place at the Alamodome in San Antonio, Texas, on April 7.

Sixty-eight of the 355 Division I teams who have been accepted as D1 schools based on their basketball programs will compete in the event. Compared to D2 and D3 universities, D1 schools have larger athletic budgets and more student-athletes. Additionally, they provide student-athletes with some of the greatest scholarships available.

The venues chosen to host each round of the 2025 NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament are as follows (host cities for all regions vary from year to year):

First Four

March 18 and 19

• University of Dayton Arena, Dayton, Ohio (Host: University of Dayton)

First and Second Rounds (Subregionals)

March 20 and 22

• Amica Mutual Pavilion, Providence, Rhode Island (Host: Providence College)
• Rupp Arena, Lexington, Kentucky (Host: University of Kentucky)
• Intrust Bank Arena, Wichita, Kansas (Host: Wichita State University)
• Ball Arena, Denver, Colorado (Host: Mountain West Conference)

March 21 and 23

Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse, Cleveland, Ohio (Host: Mid-American Conference)
Fiserv Forum, Milwaukee, Wisconsin (Host: Marquette University)
Lenovo Center, Raleigh, North Carolina (Host: North Carolina State University)
Climate Pledge Arena, Seattle, Washington (Host: University of Washington)

Regional Semi-Finals and Finals (Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight)

March 27 and 29

East Regional

• Prudential Center, Newark, New Jersey (Host: Seton Hall University)

West Regional

• Chase Center, San Francisco, California (Host: Pac-12 Conference)
  March 28 and 30

South Regional

• State Farm Arena, Atlanta, Georgia (Host: Georgia Institute of Technology)

Midwest Regional

• Lucas Oil Stadium, Indianapolis, Indiana (Hosts: Horizon League, IU-Indianapolis)

National Semifinals and Championship (Final Four)

April 5 and 7

• Alamodome, San Antonio, Texas (Hosts: UTSA, University of the Incarnate Word)

San Antonio will host the Final Four for the fifth time, having previously hosted in 2018.

Men’s teams compete for more than US$220 million, which the NCAA distributes to participants through a convoluted process, in addition to the national champions title in college basketball each year during March Madness. The NCAA distributes the majority of its $1.3 billion in annual earnings, which is primarily from March Madness, to its member schools. There are nine different methods to divide the cash outside holding championships, but the money given out for games in the NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament is by far the largest share. That comes to almost $226 million last year. Information for this year is still pending.

However, the governing body distributes that funding to the conferences through a system known as “units” rather than directly to the universities. Each tournament game, including the First Four, that a conference’s teams play before the championship gives that conference one unit. Payments to the conferences are made in yearly installments beginning the year following the tournament in which the units are earned, and those units are dispersed over a period of six years. Conferences are encouraged by the NCAA to divide this funding equally.

Which Teams Will Take Part in 2025 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament?

Each program that wins a conference tournament played during the two weeks before the 2025 NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament receives 31 automatic bids out of the 68 teams that are competing in the tournament. The NCAA Selection Committee extends the deadline for selections on the so-called “Selection Sunday” (March 16), and the remaining 37 bids are made “at-large”. These are essentially wildcard berths. At-large bids typically end up in the hands of the top teams that didn’t win their tournament. In actuality, major conferences with greater money and reputations are always preferred over mid-majors with comparable records.

Additionally, the entire field will be seeded from 1 to 68 by the Selection Committee. Eight teams compete in the First Four, including the four lowest-seeded at-large teams and the four lowest-seeded automatic qualifiers. These games’ winners move on to the main tournament bracket.

Features of the 2025 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament

The competition is a single-elimination bracket with seven rounds. There are 16–18 teams in each of the four regions into which the competition is split. Each regional semifinal and regional final (the third and fourth rounds of the event overall) is titled after the U.S. geographic area of the city hosting them.

Two rounds of the 2025 NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament are held each weekend over the course of three weekends. Eight teams participate in the First Four to get to the first round before the first weekend. The lowest-ranked at-large qualifiers and conference champions are paired in two games each. The regional semifinals and regional finals take place on the second weekend, followed by the national semifinals and championship game on the third weekend. The first and second rounds are played on the first weekend.

Depending on how many teams are left at the start of the round, regional rounds are called the Sweet Sixteen, Elite Eight, and Final Four. The third weekend is when the Final Four is on the schedule.

Who’ll Win the 2025 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament?

Even though we don’t know the names of conference winners and we’re far away from Selection Sunday, some bookmakers have released preliminary odds for selected schools to win the 2025 NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament. As of publication time, the Auburn Tigers and Duke Blue Devils have the most chances of becoming the national champions. The two-time defending champs, the UConn Huskies, are way down the favorites list: 18th.

The best markets for the NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament can be found on dollar sites that offer college basketball odds, including moneylines, spreads, over/under point totals, and prop bets for every college basketball game from the first phase of the competition, even conference matches.

The current 68-team format, which has been mostly unaltered since it was enlarged to 64 teams in 1985, was adopted in 2011. The tournament size ranged from as few as eight to as many as 53 prior to that time. Before at-large bids were introduced in 1975, the field was limited to conference winners, and teams weren’t seeded until 1979. UCLA has the most tournament titles: 11.

The NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament always has high viewership figures. For instance, the 67 games of the competition last year across CBS, TBS, TNT, and truTV (among which the coverage of the tournament has been split since 2011) averaged 9.9 million viewers, a 3% increase over 2023.

Pros and Cons of the 2025 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament Favorites