March Madness 2018: When does the Sweet 16 start?

The NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament has been nothing short of insane through the first two rounds. So when does the action resumè? We have answers.

If you went chalk with your bracket this year, you might as well follow my lead and light the damn thing on fire. It was widely thought that the defensive-minded Virginia Cavaliers might finally challenge for a title as a top-seeded juggernaut. Instead, they lost to the Golden Retrievers of UMBC, becoming the first No. 1 seed to lose against a No. 16 seed.

Incredibly, the South region will be won by a team seeded fifth or higher, with the Kentucky Wildcats becoming the heavy favorite. Of course, Sister Jean and the Loyola-Chicago Ramblers have some thoughts on that matter.

Meanwhile, the Xavier Musketeers didn’t want Virginia to feel alone as the only top seed to wildly disappoint. Xavier did manage to win one game before getting beaten by the Florida State Seminoles, who advance to take on the Gonzaga Bulldogs .

So when are all the games getting underway? The first wave of contests will be on Thursday night, with the South and West regionals going first. The Midwest and East brackets will follow suit on Friday, giving us the Elite Eight. After that, the pairings will rotate respectively on Saturday and Sunday until we have the Final Four participants locked in.

South Region (March 22)

No. 5 Kentucky Wildcats vs. No. 9 Kansas State Wildcats
No. 10 Nevada Wolf Pack vs. No. 11 Loyola-Chicago Ramblers

West Region (March 22)

No. 4 Gonzaga Bulldogs vs. No. 8 Florida State Seminoles
No. 3 Michigan Wolverines vs. No. 7 Texas A&M Aggies

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East Region (March 23)

No. 1 Villanova Wildcats vs. No. 5 West Virginia Mountaineers
No. 2 Purdue Boilermakers vs. No. 3 Texas Tech Red Raiders

Midwest Region (March 23)

No. 1 Kansas Jayhawks vs. No. 5 Clemson Tigers
No. 2 Duke Blue Devils vs. No. 11 Syracuse Orange