2006 March Madness Schedule

The road to the Final Four begins again this year at the home of the Flyers in the "Birthplace of Aviation," Dayton, Ohio, and ends just 100 miles away, not far from the most famous speedway in the world, at the RCA Dome in Indianapolis.

As has become tradition, the opening game of the 68th Division 1 men's basketball championship tournament (aka "The Big Dance") will be played at the University of Dayton Arena Tuesday, March 14. The match-up of the 64th and 65th seeds, the winner of which gets the pleasure of taking on the number one seed in the tournament, has been played in Dayton every year since the play-in game was added to the tournament format six years ago.

The Madness kicks into high gear beginning Thursday, March 16 with first-round games at the Greensboro Coliseum in Greensboro, N.C., Jacksonville's Veterans Memorial Arena in Jacksonville, Florida, the Huntsman Center in Salt Lake City and Cox Arena in San Diego. Second-round games will be played at those sites Saturday, March 18.

The other first and second round sites that will host games Friday and Sunday, March 17 and 19, are the University of Dayton, the Wachovia Center in Philadelphia, American Airlines Center in Dallas and the Palace of Auburn Hills in Michigan.

After a few days off to allow us to catch our breaths, regional play gets under way Thursday, March 23 with games at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta and at Oakland Arena in Oakland, Cal. Regional finals will be played at those sites Saturday, March 25.

The remaining regional games will be played Friday, March 24 and Sunday, March 26 at the MCI Center in Washington, D.C. and at the Metrodome in Minneapolis.

And finally, after all the Madness of the first 61 games, four teams will meet in Indianapolis for the Grand Finale, the Final Four, at the RCA Dome. The two semi-final games will be played on April Fool's Day, Saturday, April 1, and the NCAA men's basketball championship game will be played Monday, April 3.

Future sites of the Final Four include the Georgia Dome for 2007, the Alamo Dome in San Antonio in 2008, and Ford Field in Detroit in 2009. The Final Four then returns to the RCA Dome in Indianapolis in 2010, and heads back to Texas and Reliant Stadium in Houston for 2011.