NCAA: Deadline for teams' March Madness availability was Saturday
NCAA Vice President of Basketball Dan Gavitt sat down with March Madness correspondent Andy Katz to discuss the deadline for potential NCAA tournament teams' March Madness availability, which is Saturday, March 13 at 11 p.m. ET.
You can watch the complete interview above, as well as below on YouTube. The highlights of the interview are listed below, too.
Here's everything you need to know, along with the timestamps from the interview:
- (1:05) Every team coming to Indianapolis must produce seven consecutive days of negative tests in order to clear medical protocol. Then, they must must have two negative tests upon arrival within the span of roughly 12 hours before they begin preparing for their first game.
- (1:29) There is a deadline of 11 p.m. ET on Saturday, March 13 for teams to attest to their availability to play in the tournament, based upon the medical protocols.
- (1:46) So far, no teams have been eliminated from at-large consideration based upon COVID-related issues.
- (2:03) Any players or staff members who do test positive, or who are subject to contact tracing, can return to their team during the NCAA tournament after seven days of negative tests, following a period of quarantining based upon decisions made by their local health officials.
- (3:53) Eleven teams will arrive in Indianapolis on Saturday after clinching auto-bids earlier in the week.
- (4:26) Fifteen more automatic qualifiers will be decided Saturday. You can track every conference tournament and automatic qualifier here.
- (4:57) The selection committee put six more teams in the 2021 NCAA tournament field on Friday night, which means there are 39 teams that are in the pool for at-large consideration, but some of those teams will clinch automatic qualifier status, so those teams will enter the tournament as AQs, not at-large teams.
- (5:35) The selection committee will still need to select between three and seven at-large teams, based on conference tournament results. The committee hopes to have the entire field selected by Saturday night so that it can focus on seeding on Sunday.
- (6:30) Fifteen teams are still being considered for at-large spots and some of those teams can become automatic qualifiers if they win their respective conference tournaments.
The complete 2021 NCAA tournament field will be revealed Sunday, March 14 at 6 p.m. ET on CBS.
