Selection Sunday Schedule

"Selection Sunday" is the day when the 65 teams who will play in the NCAA Division I NCAA tournament also known as "March Madness" are announced. The NCAA selection names the schools on the Sunday before the tournament starts. In addition to choosing the teams, the committee seeds them from one through 16 and places them in one of four 16-team brackets around the country. Thirty-one teams gains entrance into the tournament as automatic qualifiers by winning their conference tournaments. The other 34 participants are chosen by the committee as "at-large" teams.

The tournament starts the following Tuesday with the "play-in" game involving the Nos. 65 and 64 teams. No. 16 seed ever has won a game in the tournament since the NCAA expanded the field to 64 teams in 1985. Some of the major leagues, like the Big East Conference, Big 12 Conference, Southeastern Conference, Atlantic Coast Conference. Big Ten Conference and Pac-10 Conference, get multiple teams into the tournament, depending on the committee's selections. There is no limit to the number of schools that can be picked from one conference, although generally a team has to be several games over .500 to be considered. The Big East holds the record for most teams picked in one year with eight. The lesser conferences are usually limited to one bid - their tournament champion - since they lack the powerful teams. These schools are known as "mid-majors." The committee members gather in a hotel in Indianapolis -- the home of NCAA headquarters - a few days in advance of "Selection Sunday" to begin the process of determining the 65 teams. They have to pore over mounds of data, including complete box scores, game summaries and notes, various computer rankings, head-to-head results, chronological results, Division I results, non-conference results, home and away results, results in the last twelve games, rankings and polls.http://grfx.cstv.com/photos/schools /ncaa/sports/m-baskbl/auto_pdf/09PrinciplesandProceduresWhen their work is completed, they announce the 65 teams, seedings and first-round matchup on CBS, which broadcasts the tournament.

The entire field of 65 teams for the 2010 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament was announced on March 14. Kansas (32-2), Kentucky (32-2), Duke (29-5) and Syracuse (28-4) were chosen as the four No. 1 seeds. Kansas, the top overall seed in the tournament, was sent to the Midwest Regional in Oklahoma City, Duke is headed to the South Region in Jacksonville., Kentucky will open in New Orleans in the East Region and Syracuse was slotted into the West Region, although the Orange will be playing their first two games close to home in Buffalo, New York. Syracuse's pick was a mild surprise as the Orange was the only No. 1 seed not to win its conference tournament. Syracuse actually has lost its last two games. The first-round schedule for the top seeds: Kansas vs. East Tennessee State on March 18; Duke vs. Winthrop or Arkansas Pine Bluff on March 19; Kansas vs. Lehigh on March 18 and Syracuse vs. Vermont on March 19. Syracuse, which was beaten by Georgetown in the quarterfinals of the Big East tournament, won't have history on its side. No team has lost its first game in a conference tournament and gone on to win the national title. The Final Four is set for April 3-5 in Indianapolis. The Big East led the field with eight teams, which tied its own record and is the third time the conference has put that many teams in the tournament. Two Final Four teams from last year - Connecticut and defending national champion North Carolina - did not make the field. Also left out of the tournament were UCLA, Indiana and Arizona, which had the longest active streak of appearance at 25 years snapped. This is the first time that all five of those schools missed the tournament in the same year since 1966.