March Madness 2015 TV Schedule: Full Viewing Guide for NCAA Tournament

There is no reason for you to miss any of this year's NCAA tournament. This is the greatest annual sporting event in the world, after all. Workplace productivity dips. Brackets are busted, pools are won, buzzers are beaten. 

It's the most wonderful time of the year. Below, you'll find all the information you need to ensure you don't miss a thing.

All Your Bracket Essentials

• Download the Printable Bracket
• Play the Free Bracket Challenge 

Dates: The First Four will be played on March 17-18. The second round will be played on March 19-20. The third round will be played on March 21-22. The Sweet 16 will be played on March 26-27. The Elite Eight will be played on March 28-29. The Final Four will be played on April 4. The national championship game will be played on April 6.

Watch: All games will be shown on TruTV, CBS, TNT or TBS. The full listings can be found at NCAA.com.

Streaming: All games will be shown on March Madness Live.

Bracket

How to Watch

Eric Francis/Getty Images

You know where the games are going to be broadcast and when they'll be on. But what should you be watching? 

First of all, the First Four games aren't required viewing. Yes, it's likely you don't have anything better to do on a Tuesday or Wednesday evening—and sometimes these games are truly exciting—but watching a bunch of lower-seeded teams fight for their tournament lives is about as exciting as watching a mid-major conference tournament. 

The college basketball junkies will love it. The more casual fans amongst us aren't going to find it quite as compelling.

Once the real tournament begins, you should be taking Thursday and Friday off from work or school or whatever dumb responsibilities you have and watching basketball all day long. One game should be on your television at all times, while you should have at least two other devices—preferably three—streaming the other compelling games happening at the time.

From noon ET until the last game ends, sometime around midnight, your life revolves around college basketball. These are arguably the two greatest days on the calendar every year. Don't let something dumb like work ruin them for you.

That weekend, your life also revolves around college basketball. But you already knew that.

The weekend is all about watching the sleeper teams, the No. 8 vs. No. 9 matchups, the less heralded teams. You are looking for upsets, tournament heroes who emerge from the ashes, compelling storylines.

Once the Sweet 16 and Elite Eight come around, however, the big boys start to take center stage. Sure, a few Cinderella teams and sleepers might slip through, but this is the point where watching Kentucky dominate becomes truly compelling.

This is also the point where you should no longer miss a single game. There are only 15 games left in the season, folks—why would you miss a single one?

Sure, by this point not every team of the elite group of teams—which is just Kentucky this year—and the next tier of teams (Duke, Virginia, Villanova, Gonzaga, Wisconsin, Kansas, Arizona, maybe Notre Dame) will have survived. But unless another UConn emerges (that won't happen this year), the title winner this year will come from the previously listed group of teams.

If you are looking for this year's Shabazz Napier, Mark Titus of Grantland thinks you should focus on Jerian Grant of Notre Dame:

"

He's a do-it-all guard who thrives with the ball in his hands. More important, he's a fifth-year senior who was ineligible for much of last season and has had to deal with his little brother being better than him for years.

The last few pages in the story of his collegiate career were intentionally left blank so that his path of redemption could be capped off with " … and then he put Notre Dame on his back and saved the world from the Goliath that is Kentucky using nothing but a slingshot (his smooth jumper) and a couple of stones (if you know what I mean)."

"

Notre Dame won't win this tournament. But we were saying that about UConn last year, too, so you never know. Another player to watch for the same reason: D'Angelo Russell of Ohio State.

"I just really want our team to be playing the best basketball we can possibly be playing. No regrets," Russell said after winning the Big Ten Freshman of the Year award, per Bob Baptist of The Columbus Dispatch. "I think we've yet to reach that point in our season. That would be great if we could just reach that point."

The teams facing Russell in the tournament may be the ones having the regrets. Just like you'll be having if you miss any of this year's NCAA tournament.