Two Weeks 'Til March Madness

February 25, 2021
The GIST: We’re just over two weeks away from the women’s and men’s March Madness selection and an extra hour of daylight. More basketball and sunshine? Come to mama.
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Two Weeks 'Til March Madness
Source: Bailey Orr/Texas A&M Athletics

📆The schedule: This weekend is the last of regular season action, with conference championship tournaments beginning next week. After conference champions are crowned, the men’s selection show will be hosted on March 14th at 6 p.m. ET with the women’s the next day at 7 p.m. ET. Best for last, right?

🏆Win and you’re in: In addition to serving up fun, high intensity rivalry matchups, winning the conference championship tournament gives teams a major advantage: the 31 (usually 32) conference championship winning teams (both men’s and women’s) are granted an automatic berth to the March Madness tournament.

  • The remaining 33 playoff spots for the women and 37 for the men’s (64 teams ultimately make each tournament) will be at-large selections, meaning their fate is left up to the sorting hat the selection committee.
  • All that said, if teams want to take matters into their own hands, they “just” have to win their conference championship.

👀Game to watch: There’s still some regular season business to handle before the conference championships begin, and, on the women’s side, Sunday’s matchup between No. 3 Texas A&M and No. 5 South Carolina offers an early preview of postseason style drama. Tipoff is at 2 p.m. ET.