It's Christmas in March for college basketball fans and Selection Sunday is akin to Christmas morning. For the 37 teams that will receive at-large bigs into the tournament, the NCAA Selection Show brings joy and jubilation. Bubble teams are sweating, teams with automatic bids are awaiting their seeding and fans everywhere are ready to book travel plans for the first-round action.
Here's how it all works.
Automatic bids: 31 teams will automatically be granted entry into the NCAA Tournament. They include conference tournament winners and regular season champions, such as Princeton, depending on how conferences with automatic bid status award them. A full list of teams that have obtained an auto-bid can be found here.
At-large bids: The other 37 teams come from the at-large pool, chosen by the NCAA Tournament selection committee. Using a tried-and-true process, the committee is sequestered in a hotel, living and breathing basketball while working to decide the best of the rest. The final few teams are called bubble teams, sitting on the bubble between the NCAA Tournament and NIT.
Projections: Wondering if your favorite team is in, out or on the bubble? Check out our latest bracketology to find out. Chris Dobbertean projects all 68 bids while taking a stab at each team's seeding.
To get more of a head start on Selection Sunday, be sure to stop by SB Nation's Blogging the Bracket.
As for the selection show itself, here's the relevant information.
Time: The selection show gets underway at 6 p.m. Eastern. The bracket will be revealed piece-by-piece, with the No. 1 seeds typically unveiled first, followed by each region individually. Expect plenty of commercial breaks in-between.
TV information: CBS has the exclusive broadcasting rights and will unveil the bracket beginning at 6 p.m. Eastern.
Be sure to check back with our Selection Sunday StoryStream throughout the day for more as it becomes available. As the bracket is revealed, check back with SB Nation for all your NCAA Tournament needs.