We are six weeks away from the greatest sports tournament of the season, the NCAA basketball tournament. Once again, the Virginia Tech men will not be part of the 68-team field unless they can find a way into the ACC Tournament and pull off a miracle like North Carolina State did last season.
Very unlikely to happen, but stranger things happen. Regardless, the tournament plays out over three weeks and if there has been one complaint about the tournament, it’s been by people living on the East Coast and the 9:20 p.m. tip time. Unless your school is in the championship game, it’s very hard to make it up for the entire game when it starts that late. This season, the game time for the championship game has been moved up by 30 minutes, to better accommodate college basketball fans.
🚨 National Championship tip-off time!
— NCAA March Madness (@MarchMadnessMBB) January 28, 2025
The 2025 National Championship will tip off at 8:50pm ET - 30 minutes earlier than the typical start time. pic.twitter.com/h39KTt16Q0
NCAA moves up men’s basketball championship game start time
On Tuesday, the NCAA March Madness account posted on X that the start time for the 2025 National Championship Game will tip at 8:50 p.m., almost getting the game to halftime at what would have been the normal start time. Does it make a big difference to the audience on the East Coast? Maybe, maybe not, but it is certainly a step in the right direction to keep the audience in that part of the country more engaged if their team isn’t playing.
This season’s Final Four for the men will be held in San Antonio, Texas at the Alamodome with the semifinals being held on April 5 and the championship game on April 7.
As the ACC season hits its midway point, the conference is very limited on teams that can go on a run and get to the Final Four. Clearly, Duke is a team that can represent the ACC into April, and who knows, maybe Louisville is a team of destiny with the season they are having and they can string together a deep run into the NCAA Tournament and make their way to San Antonio. Either way, fans on the East Coast can enjoy an earlier start time of 30 minutes so that they can enjoy the game more.