The 2020 NCAA Tournament kicks off this month, with a host of great sports cities serving as regional sites for the madness that March always brings.
NCAA Tournament action kicks off with First Four games in Dayton, Ohio, on March 17 and 18, as it does every year. Two games each will be played on Tuesday and Wednesday before brackets are locked on Thursday morning.
If you’re traveling to the NCAA Tournament, it’s important to know how the sites work.
Six games are always played at each first- and second-round NCAA Tournament site. Two pods of four teams travel to that site and play on Thursday or Friday, then the winners of the two games within each pod play at the same site two days later, on Saturday or Sunday. Each pod winner will advance to one of four regionals.
The regional final will feature three games as well — two Sweet 16 contests, then the winners face off in the Elite 8.
So if the top of the bracket has No. 1 Kansas vs. No. 16 Winthrop and No. 8 Marquette vs. No. 9 Arizona State in St. Louis on Thursday, the winners of those two games will play Saturday with a Sweet 16 spot on the line. The winners of the four pods then convene for the regional final at one site.
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March Madness Locations – First Four
- Location: Dayton, Ohio
- Host: University of Dayton
- Dates: March 17-18
Two games will be played on both Tuesday and Wednesday in Dayton before the true first round of the tournament — these are better known as play-in games.
Since the field expanded to 68 teams in 2011, two play-in games feature two No. 11 seeds facing off. These are usually reserved for the last teams that qualified with at-large bids. The other two games will feature No. 16 seeds, which are automatic qualifiers (won their conference tournament) from the weaker leagues.
First and Second Rounds
The first- and second-round sites are not locked into a preset region, neither geographically nor by any bracket prediction setup you may see online.
Therefore, the St. Louis site isn’t guaranteed to host early games in the Midwest Regional. We don’t know until the full bracket is released on Selection Sunday, March 15.
St. Louis, Mo.
- Host: Missouri Valley Conference
- Venue: Enterprise Center
- Dates: March 19, 21
Omaha, Neb.
- Venue: CenturyLink Center Omaha
- Dates: March 20, 22
- Host: Creighton University
Tampa, Fla.
- Venue: Amalie Arena
- Dates: March 19, 21
- Host: University of South Florida
Greensboro, N.C.
- Venue: Greensboro Coliseum
- Dates: March 20, 22
- Host: ACC
Spokane, Wash.
- Venue: Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena
- Dates: March 19, 21
- Host: University of Idaho
Sacramento, Calif.
- Venue: Golden 1 Center
- Dates: March 20, 22
- Host: Sacramento State University
Albany, N.Y.
- Venue: Times Union Center
- Dates: March 19, 21
- Host: MAAC
Cleveland, Ohio
- Venue: Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse
- Dates: March 20, 22
- Host: MAC/Cleveland State
Sweet 16 and Elite 8 Dates, Sites
Midwest Regional
- Location: Indianapolis, Ind.
- Venue: Lucas Oil Stadium
- Dates: March 26, 28
- Host: Horizon League/IUPUI
Indy is a favorite spot for the NCAA Tournament committee. Lucas Oil Stadium has hosted regional finals in 2009, 2013 and 2014 and the Final Four in 2010 and 2015.
It’s scheduled to host the Final Four again in 2021 and 2026.
West Regional
- Location: Los Angeles, Calif.
- Venue: STAPLES Center
- Dates: March 26, 28
- Host: Pepperdine University
L.A. is also a frequent site for regional finals, hosting in 2013, 2015 and 2018. It has never hosted a Final Four, since those have mostly been played at larger venues like football stadiums.
Gonzaga has been a top 4 seed in the West Region in each of the last three years, and don’t expect that to change in 2020. The Bulldogs are 29-2, lead the country in offensive efficiency, are projected as No. 1 seed right now and will be favored in all their games in the West Coast Conference Tournament.
East Regional
- Location: New York, N.Y.
- Venue: Madison Square Garden
- Dates: March 27, 29
- Host: St. John’s/Big East
The Basketball Mecca will play host to the East Regional final this year. It’s hard to top that.
The Garden hosted 27 different NCAA Tournament weekends from 1943-1961 — sometimes it had a regional final and the Final Four in the same year.
But it took a long break, returning to the NCAA Tournament fold in 2014 for the East Regional finals. It also hosted in 2017, when a chaotic bracket ended with South Carolina beating Florida in the Elite Eight.
South Regional
- Location: Houston, Texas
- Venue: Toyota Center
- Dates: March 27, 29
- Host: University of Houston
This is the first time the Toyota Center, home of the Houston Rockets, will host a regional final.
Houston has held plenty of NCAA Tournament games, though, with the Texans’ NRG Stadium hosting the Final Four in 2011 and 2016, when Villanova captured a national title over North Carolina on a buzzer-beating 3-pointer.
Final Four Date, Site
- Location: Atlanta, Ga.
- Host: Georgia Tech
- Venue: Mercedes-Benz Stadium
- Dates: April 4, 6
The state-of-the-art Mercedes-Benz Stadium will host the Final Four for the first time, adding to a flood of marquee events Atlanta has gotten in the last few years. Those include the 2019 Super Bowl and 2018 College Football Playoff national title game.
The Georgia Dome last hosted the Final Four in 2013, when Louisville topped Michigan. Florida captured its second straight national title there in 2007, and Maryland won it all in Atlanta in 2002.
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