College Basketball Crown bracket, teams, schedule, explained for 2025 debut

There’s a new college basketball tournament in town with some big programs. Get to know The Crown.

The College Basketball Crown unveiled its inaugural 16-team bracket on Monday morning.

A newly-created, single-elimination postseason tournament — created by Fox and held entirely in Las Vegas during Final Four week — puts together a field of high-major teams that didn’t qualify for the NCAA Tournament.

The College Basketball Crown is also the reason the NIT was gutted into essentially a mid-major tournament. Fox is attempting to compete head-to-head with ESPN for college basketball viewers during the month of March.

So is this new corporate-driven postseason showcase worth any attention? Is this new event college basketball’s answer to college football’s bowl season? Let’s break down the Crown and find its place in college hoops.

How did the field come together?

The College Basketball Crown selection process included auto bids for the top two teams from the Big Ten, Big East and Big 12 who didn’t make the NCAA tournament. From there, the event had 10 at-large invites at its disposal.

The inaugural field comprises Arizona State, Butler, Boise State, Cincinnati, Colorado, DePaul, George Washington, Georgetown, Nebraska, Oregon State, Tulane, UCF, USC, Utah, Villanova and Washington State.

If you’ll notice, the field is missing ACC and SEC representation in favor of conferences that Fox has TV deals with. Which means five Big 12 teams, four Big East teams, two Big Ten teams and teams from the Atlantic Ten, AAC, Mountain West and WCC.

As noted by Drew Lerner at Awful Announcing, the NIT’s field of power-conference teams reduced from 18 last year (with 15 teams turning it down before that) to only four this year. Three ACC teams (Georgia Tech, SMU and Stanford) and Oklahoma State from the Big 12 are the only power-conference teams in the 2025 NIT field.

Even in year one, the College Basketball Crown’s influence on postseason basketball feels significant with regards to its conference television partners. With the Crown scheduled to go head-to-head against the NIT’s final rounds (more on that in a moment), this is clearly Fox’s answer for more college basketball viewers during a period of heightened interest in the sport.

College Basketball Crown’s unique schedule

One of the new developments for the College Basketball Crown is the decision to wait two weeks to start the event.

Playing all of its games in the week leading up to the Final Four, the College Basketball Crown is giving daytime basketball and primetime matchups to viewers potentially craving more of the sport after the first two weeks of the NCAA Tournament.

This mostly represents hardcore college hoops fans, gamblers and fans of the teams playing in the event. Fox seems to believe there’s a market for playing this tournament and televising so many games during this time of year.

The Crown goes head-to-head on television with the NIT’s semifinals and title game at Hinkle Fieldhouse — making for an interesting amount of college hoops every night leading up to the Final Four.

It feels like the College Basketball Crown and NIT’s television battle is executives and advertisers turning the concept of March Madness into a college football bowl season scenario — a month filled with endless college hoops that nobody seems to be particularly asking for, yet will develop enough of a following to likely maintain.

Is anybody clamoring for Utah facing Butler? Or DePaul facing former conference rival Cincinnati? Not particularly. But when it’s the only college basketball being played at 3 p.m. on a weekday afternoon in late March, there will be people watching.

Crown bracket

Crown tournament schedule

Monday, March 31

Utah vs. Butler, 3 p.m.

George Washington vs. Boise State, 5:30 p.m.

Nebraska vs. Arizona State, 8:30 p.m.

Georgetown vs. Washington State, 11 p.m.

Tuesday, April 1

DePaul vs. Cincinnati, 3 p.m.

Oregon State vs. UCF, 5:30 p.m.

Colorado vs. Villanova, 8:30 p.m.

Tulane vs. USC, 11 p.m.

Wednesday, April 2 and Thursday, April 3

Quarterfinals at 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.

Saturday, April 5

Semifinals at 1:30 p.m. and 4 p.m.

Sunday, April 6

Championship at 5:30 p.m.

Will the basketball be any good?

This is the most important question surrounding the College Basketball Crown. Is the basketball going to be competitive and worth watching?

The Crown’s field was fortunate to get Boise State after a strong season. The Broncos were one of the last four teams out of the NCAA Tournament’s at-large conversation.

But many of the teams playing in the Crown were at or below .500 this season with undesirable conference records.

The College Basketball Crown is luring teams to Las Vegas using NIL money. And it shows, in particular, with Villanova. The Wildcats fired head coach Kyle Neptune last week. With interim head coach Mike Nardi at the helm, Villanova will still play in the Crown.

Villanova’s season was disappointing enough to warrant a coaching change yet still good enough to continue on in a postseason tournament for NIL money. That’s the type of mixed messaging delivered by programs in the modern era of college basketball as business interests become more apparent.

The men’s college basketball transfer portal also officially opens a week before the Crown is set to start. How will rosters for the event look with player movement as prominent as ever.

It’s impossible to predict if the Crown will have quality basketball during its first season. But the made-for-tv spectacle drew more high-major star power than the NIT and seems to be here to stay. Whether that’s a good thing for college basketball’s expanding postseason remains to be seen.