There are 64 teams that will compete in the tournament from all over the country and from different conferences. Next week, conference tournaments will start and the NCAA bracket will start to fill up. The winner of each conference tournament receives an automatic bid to the “Big Dance.” There are 32 division 1 conferences in college basketball, so we will receive an automatic 32 teams to enter the tournament.
The main purpose of this process is to include mid-major programs that may not receive the attention or respect as the larger conferences. For the majority of these conferences, this is their only chance to punch their ticket to the tournament.
The remaining 32 teams will receive an “at-large bid” and are selected by strength of schedule, overall record, quality wins and “bad” losses. You will see more teams in the tournament from larger conferences because of the quality opponents they play and the fact that the main purpose of the tournament is to find the best team in the country.
These teams will be revealed on “Selection Sunday,” March 12th at 6 pm ET.
You can keep up to date with which teams, including your own, are projected to participate in the tournament on Haslametrics.com.