2022 Final Four live stream: March Madness TV schedule, watch NCAA Tournament

March Madness was back how we remembered it this year with fans in the stands and spread out across the country in packed arenas. The NCAA Tournament also gave college basketball fans around the nation plenty of historic upsets and millions of busted brackets, but there’s nothing Cinderella about the blue-blood programs programs and matchups in the Final Four on Saturday night. Kansas, Villanova, Duke and North Carolina have combined for 61 Final Four appearances and 17 national championships, including the winners in seven of the last 13 title games. It’s a blue-blood Final Four field with programs whose reach and recognition are wide-ranging, making Saturday night one of the most-anticipated evenings in the history of college basketball. 

The four programs even have some history against each other. Kansas and Villanova played in the NCAA Tournament in 2008, 2016 and 2018, with the most recent meeting coming in the Final Four and the winner going on to claim the national championship in all instances. Duke beat Kansas for Mike Krzyzewski’s first national championship back in 1991. Villanova beat Duke on the way to Jay Wright’s first Final Four and then defeated North Carolina at the buzzer to claim Wright’s first title with the program. The only programs who don’t have NCAA Tournament history are the two who know each other best: the Tobacco Road rivals of Duke and North Carolina.

No. 1 seed Kansas and No. 2 seed Villanova will get the historic proceedings started in the 6:09 p.m. ET tipoff from New Orleans, rematching the national semifinal from San Antonio four years ago. After Game 1, at approximately 8:49 p.m., No. 2 seed Duke will play No. 8 seed North Carolina. Mike Krzyzewski’s retirement tour has been one of the big draws for sports fans, and now the Blue Devils’ dream season will be on the line against their biggest rival. When you consider the history of both of these programs in the Final Four and the gravity of where both Duke and North Carolina are in this moment — the Blue Devils finishing out Coach K’s last season while North Carolina has made the Final Four in Year 1 with Hubert Davis — the stage could not be bigger. 

You can see why fans are so excited to watch and stream this Final Four, because that’s not half of what you should be on the lookout for on Saturday night. Let’s get to the big storylines for the national semifinals this weekend. 

Historic stage for best rivalry in college basketball 

Duke and North Carolina have played 257 times but never in the NCAA Tournament, so to have this meeting come not only in the Final Four but with all the context of this season brings historic weight to the occasion. Krzyzewski and the Blue Devils hoped to finish the season here with a talent-rich roster of future NBA talent that started the year ranked in the top 10, reached No. 1 in the AP Top 25 poll and won the program’s first regular season ACC crown since 2010. But along the path to a No. 2 seed, Duke did have some setbacks, none more notable than North Carolina’s 94-81 win in Coach K’s final game inside Cameron Indoor Stadium. 

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