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• The NCAA announced yesterday that the greater Indianapolis area will host the entirety of the 2021 men’s tournament
• Six venues will be used to hold the 68-team tournament: Bankers Life Fieldhouse (Pacers), Hinkle Fieldhouse (Butler), Indiana Farmers Coliseum (IUPUI), Mackey Arena (Purdue), Assembly Hall (Indiana) and Lucas Oil Stadium (Colts)
• The tournament is slated to be held over a condensed two-week timeline — it will start in late March and conclude with with the national championship game on April 5
• NCAA president Mark Emmert: “This is a historic moment for NCAA members and the state of Indiana. We have worked tirelessly to reimagine a tournament structure that maintains our unique championship opportunity for college athletes.”
• For more information about the NCAA Tourney and place bets click here!

Essentially, this will allow the NCAA to hold the tourney in a bubble of sorts, cutting down travel and potential exposure to the coronavirus. As part of the arrangement, the NCAA said it’s “partnering with a local health provider to administer COVID-19 testing within the controlled environment for players, coaching staffs, administrators and officials.”

We’ll have to wait for more details on exactly how this is going to work (and if fans will be allowed to attend games) but this should come as good news for those of us who enjoy doing nothing but sitting around and watching/betting on sports all day. The opening weekend of March Madness is as non-stop and chaotic as any event on the annual sporting event calendar, and this year the condensed schedule should make things even more nutty. Hope your vacation days and sick days from 2020 carried over!

And to help us celebrate this wonderful news, our Jerry Palm has gifted us his very first in-season bracketology projections. My Texas Longhorns as a projected No. 1 seed? Goodness, this day just keeps getting better and better.