The 2019 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament will be a 68-team single-elimination tournament to determine the men’s National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) Division I college basketball national champion for the 2018–19 season. The 81st edition of the Tournament is scheduled to begin on March 19, 2019 and will conclude with the championship game on April 8 at U.S. Bank Stadium in Minneapolis, Minnesota.[1]
2019 NCAA Tournament schedule and venues
First Four
- March 19 and 20
First and Second Rounds
- March 21 and 23
- March 22 and 24
Regional Semifinals and Finals (Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight)
- March 28 and 30
- West Regional, Honda Center, Anaheim, California (Host: Big West Conference)
- South Regional, KFC Yum! Center, Louisville, Kentucky (Host: University of Louisville)
- March 29 and 31
- East Regional, Capital One Arena, Washington, D.C. (Host: Georgetown University)
- Midwest Regional, Sprint Center, Kansas City, Missouri (Host: Missouri Valley Conference)
National Semifinals and Championship (Final Four and Championship)
- April 6 and 8
2019 will see U.S. Bank Stadium become the fortieth venue to host the Final Four. This is the first hosting of the event at the facility, built on the site of the old Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, a two-time host in 1992 and 2001. The last time a venue hosted the Final Four for its first hosting of an NCAA tournament was 1977 when Atlanta’s Omni Coliseum hosted the Final Four. It will also see the tournament return to Hartford’s XL Center for the first time since 1998. For the first time since 1970, the tournament will return to Columbia, South Carolina when it comes to the Colonial Life Arena, the second tournament the state will host since the end of the ban due to the Confederate Flag controversy.