NCAA Men's Basketball Conference Tournaments

photo by Robert Deutsch/USA TODAY Sports

On February 27th, 2023, the NCAA Men’s Basketball Conference Tournaments started. 32 different conferences will battle it out amongst their own teams to crown the conference champion. The tournaments will end on Sunday March 12th, before the prominent Selection Sunday.
by Drew Caraway

Selection Sunday is one of the most exciting and important days in College Basketball. It is the day that all the College Teams that are in March Madness are announced.
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Well known Walnut Grove Warrior, Bostyn Rounsaville, talked about his favorite College Basketball team. “My favorite team is probably the Duke Blue Devils. I like them because in the previous years, there have been so many good players that went there, some of my favorite NBA players have gone to Duke before. I’ve liked Duke for about three years, ever since I really started getting into basketball.” He then went on to talk about his favorite player, and what he thinks the team needs to do to win the ACC Conference Championship. “To be honest, I don’t really know that many Duke [Blue Devil] players, but I would definitely choose Zion [Williamson]. I’ve heard that they have been losing a lot recently, so that’s not something to be very proud of. [I would] probably recruit better players and maybe more intense training.”

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The ASUN Conference kicked things off, beginning the start of the conference tournaments (via CBS Sports). The BIG12 is, substantially, recognized as the best conference in the NCAA Men’s Basketball League. The BIG12 has five teams ranked in the AP Poll (as of 2/27/23), which is the most in NCAA. Those ranked teams being the Kansas Jayhawks (#3), the Baylor Bears (#7), the Texas Longhorns (#9), the Kansas State Wildcats (#11), and the TCU Horned Frogs (#22) (via TeamRankings). 

March Madness is a nearly month-long tournament that has teams face off for the chance to advance to the next round. There are 68 teams announced on Selection Sunday. The 32 Conference Champions will get an automatic “bid-in”, so each team will get a selective seed, being seeded 1-16 in their regions. 16 teams in each region add up to 64 teams.
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Once the seeds are set, the games begin that Thursday! The Round of 64 are seeds 1 vs. 16, 2 vs. 15, and so on. Once the Round of 64 is over, it moves to the Round of 32. The Round of 32 is the teams who won from the Round of 64. If all the higher seeds were to win in the Round of 64, it would be 1 vs. 8, 2 vs. 7, etc. Following the Round of 32, comes the Sweet 16, the remaining 16 teams in the tournament. Games would be 1 vs. 4 and 2 vs. 3 in each region. Then, the Elite Eight. It would be 1 vs. 2 in every region, ultimately leading up to the Final Four, one of the most covenant awards in college basketball. The winner of each region will play their opposite region, so the winner of the Midwest region will play the winner of the South region.

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Finally, the National Championship. The winner of each Final Four game will face off for the National Championship trophy. Last April, the Kansas Jayhawks were crowned champions after beating the North Carolina Tar Heels, with a score of 72-69. 

The eagerness of March is upon us. Now, the people just have to wait, and the Madness will begin. But, no worries if the people will miss College Basketball, because the NBA Playoffs will start soon after.