The college basketball regular season is over and the conference tournaments have wrapped up, leaving it all up to the selection Committee to determine who will make it to the “Big Dance”, that is the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament.
The field of teams was selected on Sunday with the first four games to be played on March 15 th and 16 th with the first round of the tournament beginning on the 17 th .
The sixth annual Lamb County Leader-News Big Bracket Challenge rules can be found on Page 3 of this edition of the Leader-News.
Brackets must be competed and returned to us by 5 p.m. on Thursday or postmarked before that time on Thursday if you are mailing your bracket in to us. You must pick the first four games correctly in order to receive credit for those games even though those games happen before brackets are due.
The “first four” games will be played March 14 th and 15 th at UD Arena in Dayton, Ohio, while the first and second round games will be played March 17 th and 19 th at Buffalo, New York; Indianapolis, Indiana, Fort Worth, Texas and Portland, Oregon. Also, on the 18 th and 20 th at Greenville, South Carolina; Milwaukee, Wisconsin; Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania and San Diego California.
The Sweet 16 and Elite Eight venues are March 24 th and 26 th at AT&T Center in San Antonio, Texas and Chase Center in San Francisco, California. Also, on March 25 th and 27 th at the United Center in Chicago, Illinois and Wells Fargo Center in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
The Final Four and National Championship will be played on April 2 nd and 4 th at Caesars Superdome in New Orleans.
First round games will be worth one point; second round games will be worth two points, Sweet 16 games will be worth four points, Elite 8 games will be worth eight points, Final Four games will be worth 16 points and the championship game will be worth 32 points.
In case of a tie, the tie-breaker will be the combined score of the championship game.
Results will be published in the Wednesday edition of the Leader-News on April 6 th .