When does the 2022 March Madness women’s basketball tournament start

The 2021 Women’s March Madness basketball tournament not only provided buzzer-beaters and an insane amount of excitement, but it also showed the stark inequity between the men’s and the women’s games thanks to student-athletes pulling back the curtain on social media.

Many of those inequities have been addressed and hopefully will not be present when the 2022 tournament gets started next week. On the court drama will be sure to unfold, with returning champions Stanford listed at +650 to hoist the trophy again. The favorites to win this version are South Carolina (+150) and UConn (+380).

The First Four will kick things off on Wednesday, March 16 with a tipoff time yet to be determined. This round consists of four games involving the bottom-four seeds of the automatic qualifiers, and bottom-four seeds of the at-large teams. The first round then follows on March 18-19.

The women’s tournament can all be found on the ESPN family of networks, with all three games of the Final Four broadcast on ESPN.

Here, is a look at the full schedule of dates for the 2022 NCAA Women’s Basketball Tournament.

2022 March Madness schedule

Sunday, March 13 — Selection Sunday, starts at 8 p.m. EST
Tuesday & Wednesday, March 16-17 — First Four, Time TBD
Friday & Saturday, March 18-19 — First Round, Time TBD
Saturday & Sunday, March 20-21 — Second Round, Time TBD
Friday & Saturday, March 25-26 — Regional Semifinals, Time TBD
Sunday & Monday, March 27-28 — Regional Finals, Time TBD
Friday, April 1 — Final Four, 7:00 p.m. ET & 9:30 p.m. ET
Sunday, April 3 — NCAA Men’s Basketball Championship game, 6 p.m. ET