NCAA Tournament 2017: Known Info for March Madness Bracket

The entire NCAA tournament bracket for men's Division I basketball won't be revealed until Sunday, March 12, at 5:30 p.m. ET on CBS, but we do know some information beforehand, specifically the locations for this year's games, television and live-stream coverage and teams who have received automatic March Madness bids.

We can also safely speculate on who the No. 1 seeds will be this year. Three of them are all but certain (Villanova, North Carolina and Gonzaga) while the last spot is a little dicey after previous front-runner Kansas lost to unranked TCU in the Big 12 tournament quarterfinals on Thursday.

Below you'll find all of that pertinent information.

NCAA Tournament Schedule

Date	Round	Location	Television
Tuesday, March 14 and Wednesday, March 15	First Four	Dayton, Ohio	truTV
Thursday, March 16 and Saturday, March 18	First/Second	Buffalo, New York	CBS, TNT, TBS, truTV
Thursday, March 16 and Saturday, March 18	First/Second	Milwaukee	CBS, TNT, TBS, truTV
Thursday, March 16 and Saturday, March 18	First/Second	Salt Lake City	CBS, TNT, TBS, truTV
Thursday, March 16 and Saturday, March 18	First/Second	Orlando, Florida	CBS, TNT, TBS, truTV
Wednesday, March 17 and Friday, March 19	First/Second	Greenville, South Carolina	CBS, TNT, TBS, truTV
Wednesday, March 17 and Friday, March 19	First/Second	Indianapolis	CBS, TNT, TBS, truTV
Wednesday, March 17 and Friday, March 19	First/Second	Tulsa, Oklahoma	CBS, TNT, TBS, truTV
Wednesday, March 17 and Friday, March 19	First/Second	Sacramento, California	CBS, TNT, TBS, truTV
Thursday, March 23 and Saturday, March 25	Midwest Regional	Kansas City, Missouri	TBS or CBS
Thursday, March 23 and Saturday, March 25	West Regional	San Jose, California	TBS or CBS
Friday, March 24 and Sunday, March 26	South Regional	Memphis, Tennessee	TBS or CBS
Friday, March 24 and Sunday, March 26	East Regional	New York	TBS or CBS
Saturday, April 1 and Sunday, April 3	Final Four	Phoenix	CBS

Source: NCAA.com for schedule and NCAA.com for television coverage

Automatic Bids

Conference	Team
Atlantic Sun	Florida Gulf Coast
Big South	Winthrop
Colonial Athletic Association (CAA)	UNC Wilmington
Horizon League	Northern Kentucky
Metro Atlantic Athletic (MAAC)	Iona
Missouri Valley (MVC)	Wichita State
Northeast (NEC)	Mount Saint Mary's
Ohio Valley (OVC)	Jacksonville State
Patriot League	Bucknell
Southern (SoCon)	East Tennessee State
Summit	South Dakota State
West Coast (WCC)	Gonzaga

Source: NCAA.com

Battle for No. 1 Seeds

You can write Gonzaga in pen on the No. 1 seed line in the West regional after it finished a 32-1 season that included a 29-game win streak and three wins over WCC foe St. Mary's, who reside in the No. 19 spot in the Associated Press poll.

Gonzaga won its three conference games by an average of 19.66 points after losing its regular-season finale to BYU. The Bulldogs also beat three tough non-conference teams this year: Florida, Iowa State and Arizona.

You can put Villanova on the No. 1 seed line in the East Regional too even though it has yet to play in the semifinal round of the Big East tournament.

The defending-champion Wildcats are 29-3 after winning the Big East regular-season title. Like Gonzaga, Villanova challenged itself out of conference, beating future NCAA tournament teams Wake Forest, Notre Dame and Purdue. The Wildcats' only losses were to No. 18 Butler (twice) and Marquette, both of whom should make March Madness.

Even if Villanova loses to Seton Hall in the Big East semifinals (which is unlikely, as the Wildcats crushed Seton Hall twice this year and are an 11-point favorite to win per OddsShark), the Wildcats wouldn't have any bad losses on its resume. At worst, they'll finish the season 29-4 after winning the regular-season title of a strong league that could have 70 percent of its teams go to March Madness, per Joe Lunardi of ESPN.

North Carolina won the regular-season title for the ACC, which is the conference that will almost certainly send the most teams to the tournament (Lunardi has 10 right now). At the risk of sounding like a broken record, UNC also played some tough non-conference foes, beating Wisconsin and Oklahoma State but losing to Kentucky in a 103-100 shootout.

In conference, UNC managed a 14-4 ACC record, two games clear of the rest of the field. The Tar Heels are also 27-6 overall on the year and never lost a home game.

A loss to a tough Duke team, which just beat No. 10 Louisville on Friday, should not end North Carolina's No. 1 seed hopes, as UNC has one of the best overall resumes in the entire country.

Kansas is on shaky ground after a loss to a TCU team that ranks No. 78 in RPI. The Jayhawks had a great regular season, going 28-3 (two of its losses were in regulation), winning the Big 12 and beating Duke and Kentucky out of conference.

But that loss is a bad way to end the year, even if freshman star Josh Jackson was off the court due to a suspension.

This opens up the possibility for another team to sneak in with a strong run, and the guess is that the Pac-12 champion (should it be Oregon, Arizona or UCLA) or Kentucky (if it wins the SEC) will take over the No. 1 seed from Kansas.