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Saturday, October 3, 2026 at 5:20 PM ET

March Madness and the College Basketball Calendar Explained

The college basketball calendar explained: nonconference play, conference tournaments, Selection Sunday, the March Madness bracket and the transfer portal.

Updated 2026-10-03.

In this guide
  1. The regular season
  2. Conference tournaments
  3. Selection Sunday
  4. How the bracket works
  5. The coaching carousel
  6. The transfer portal
  7. Other offseason news
  8. Related reading

College basketball has a long season that builds toward a few weeks of nonstop news in March and April. Then, almost as soon as a champion is crowned, a second rush begins: coaches change jobs and players move through the transfer portal. Here is how the year fits together.

The regular season

The season tips off in early November. The first two months are mostly nonconference games, where teams schedule opponents outside their own league. This stretch includes early-season tournaments, often held at neutral sites around Thanksgiving, and marquee matchups between big programs.

Around the turn of the year, the focus shifts to conference play. Teams spend January and February playing league opponents, chasing a regular-season conference title and building the résumé that matters on Selection Sunday.

A few things to watch during the regular season:

  • The polls. The weekly media and coaches polls get attention, but they do not decide who makes the tournament.
  • The NET. The NCAA Evaluation Tool is the NCAA’s own ranking system. It is one of the main sorting tools the selection committee uses.
  • Quadrant records. Wins and losses are sorted into quadrants based on the opponent’s NET ranking and where the game was played. A road win over a strong team counts for much more than a home win over a weak one.

Conference tournaments

In early March, most conferences hold a postseason tournament. The winner usually receives the conference’s automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament, no matter its overall record.

That makes conference tournament week one of the best of the year. A team that struggled all season can get hot for a few days and punch its ticket. Meanwhile, a regular-season champion from a smaller league can lose in its tournament and end up hoping for an at-large bid that may never come.

You will also hear the term bid thief. That is a team from a league expected to send only one team that wins its conference tournament as an underdog. It takes an automatic bid that would otherwise have gone to an at-large team, which shrinks the field for teams on the bubble.

Selection Sunday

The NCAA Tournament field is revealed on Selection Sunday, the weekend after most conference tournaments end. A selection committee picks the teams, seeds them and places them in the bracket.

The field is made up of two groups:

  • Automatic qualifiers: conference tournament winners (or the designated champion of a league).
  • At-large teams: the best remaining teams, as judged by the committee.

The teams closest to the cut line are said to be on the bubble. Bubble watch is a big part of college basketball coverage in late February and March, and “last four in” and “first four out” lists are published by bracket projectors all season.

How the bracket works

The bracket is split into four regions, with teams seeded 1 through 16 in each. Higher seeds face lower seeds in the opening round, so a No. 1 seed plays a No. 16 seed, a No. 2 plays a No. 15, and so on.

Some quick bracket basics:

  • The First Four. A small set of play-in games is held before the main rounds begin.
  • Single elimination. One loss ends a team’s season, which is why upsets are so common and so memorable.
  • The rounds. The field narrows through the first and second rounds, the Sweet 16, the Elite Eight and the Final Four, ending with the national championship game in early April.
  • Sites. Men’s early-round games are held at neutral sites. In the women’s tournament, top seeds have generally hosted early-round games on their home courts.

The men’s and women’s tournaments run on parallel schedules, and both draw huge audiences. The NIT and other postseason events give teams that miss the NCAA field a chance to keep playing.

Coaching changes can start during the season, but most happen in March and early April. Schools that miss the tournament or underperform often make a change as soon as their season ends.

The carousel tends to move in chains. When a big program hires a coach away from another school, that school then needs a new coach, and so on down the line. Search news usually comes from reporters with sources at the schools or among agents, and it often includes wording like “finalizing a deal” or “targeting” before anything is official.

Coaches whose teams are still playing in the tournament are sometimes linked to open jobs while they are still coaching. That can create awkward timing and plenty of speculation.

The transfer portal

The transfer portal is an NCAA database where players who want to transfer are listed. Once a player enters, other schools can contact him or her. Entering the portal does not guarantee a new school, and a player can withdraw and return in some cases.

The main portal window for college basketball opens in the spring, after the season. The exact timing and length of the window have changed in recent years, so check the current rules each year. Players can also enter outside the window in certain circumstances, such as a head coaching change.

Portal season produces a steady stream of headlines:

  • Entries. A player “has entered the transfer portal.”
  • Visits. Players take visits to schools, often in quick succession.
  • Commitments. A player announces where he or she is going, often on social media.

Name, image and likeness (NIL) money and changing rules around player compensation now play a big part in where players end up. Rosters can turn over heavily from one season to the next.

Other offseason news

After the portal settles, attention turns to the NBA and WNBA draft process. Underclassmen decide whether to stay in the draft or return to school, and those decisions can reshape a team’s outlook for the next season. Recruiting of high school players continues year-round, with commitments and signings adding to the news cycle.

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