Technologies
March Madness 2023: Women’s NCAA Tournament Schedule, Bracket, How to Watch and More
On Selection Sunday, the field of 68 teams will be set for the women’s college basketball tournament.

If you’re unfamiliar with Caitlin Clark, it’s time to get acquainted. The sensational Iowa point guard is second in the nation in points and first in assists and has the Hawkeyes poised to nab a top seed in the women’s NCAA basketball tournament that tips off next week. The biggest obstacle standing in Clark’s way is Aliyah Boston and South Carolina. Boston is the reigning Naismith Player of the Year and Defensive Player of the Year, and the Gamecocks are the defending champions. They have yet to lose a game this year.
Iowa and South Carolina appear to be on a collision course to meet in the championship, but anything can happen in March in college basketball — when one loss ends your season. The women’s March Madness tournament gets underway next week with 68 teams in the field and will crown a champion on April 2.
Here’s everything you need to know to watch the women’s NCAA tournament on ABC and a host of ESPN channels without cable (and here’s how to watch the men’s tournament).


Iowa’s Caitlin Clark is one of the most exciting players in college basketball.
David Berding/Getty ImagesWhen does the women’s NCAA tourament start?
The women’s March Madness tournament tips off on Wednesday, March 15, with two play-in games followed by two more play-in games the next night. After these First Four games, the field of 68 is trimmed to a more mathematically manageable 64 and the tournament begins in earnest on Friday, March 17, with a full slate of games.
When is Selection Sunday?
The March Madness bracket and matchups will be revealed this Sunday, March 12. Selection Sunday begins at 8 p.m. ET (5 p.m. PT) on ESPN.
What is the NCAAW tournament schedule?
Here’s the schedule, round by round:
- First Four: March 15-16
- First round: March 17-18
- Second round: March 19-20
- Sweet 16: March 24-25
- Elite Eight: March 26-27
- Final Four: March 31
- Women’s NCAA championship game: April 2
How can I watch the women’s tournament?
The tournament will be shown on ABC and a variety of ESPN channels: ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNews and ESPNU.
Can I stream March Madness for free?
Go to the NCAA’s March Madness Live site or use its March Madness Live app and you’ll be able to watch games for free. You can watch March Madness Live on iOS and Android devices along with Apple TV, Roku, Fire TV and Xbox One. The app also supports AirPlay and Chromecast.
As with most things that are free, there’s a catch. Without proving you’re a pay-TV subscriber, you get only a three-hour preview, after which point you’ll need to log in to continue watching.
What are my other streaming options?
You can use a live TV streaming service to watch the women’s NCAA basketball tournament. All five of the major live TV streaming services offer the channels needed to watch every game, but keep in mind that not every service carries every local network, so check each one using the links below to make sure it carries ABC in your area.
Sarah Tew/CNET
YouTube TV costs $65 a month and includes ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNews and ESPNU. Plug in your ZIP code on its welcome page to see which local networks are available in your area. Read our YouTube TV review.
Hulu
Hulu with Live TV costs $70 a month and includes ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, ESPNews and ESPNU. Click the «View channels in your area» link on its welcome page to see which local channels are offered in your ZIP code. Read our Hulu with Live TV review.
Sling/CNET
Sling TV’s $55-a-month Orange and Blue plan includes ABC, ESPN and ESPN2. Keep in mind, however, that Sling offers ABC carries ABC only in a handful of areas. With the $15-a-month Sports Extra add-on, you can also watch the games on ESPNews and ESPNU. Read our Sling TV review.
Fubo TV
FuboTV’s basic plan costs $75 a month and includes ABC, ESPN and ESPN2. The Fubo Extra add-on costs an additional $8 a month and includes ESPNews and ESPNU. Click here to see which local channels you get. Read our FuboTV review.
Directv stream
DirecTV Stream’s basic $75-a-month plan includes ABC, ESPN and ESPN2, but you’ll need the $99-a-month plan to also get ESPNews and ESPNU. You can use its channel lookup tool to see which local channels are available where you live. Read our DirecTV Stream review.
All of the live TV streaming services above offer free trials, allow you to cancel anytime and require a solid internet connection. Looking for more information? Check out our live-TV streaming services guide.
Technologies
Today’s NYT Connections Hints, Answers and Help for July 21, #771
Here are some hints and the answers for the NYT Connections puzzle for July 21, #771.

Looking for the most recent Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle, Connections: Sports Edition and Strands puzzles.
Hey, Seinfeld fans, today’s NYT Connections puzzle is right up your alley. That makes the blue category fun, but that purple category got me, as always. Read on for clues and today’s Connections answers.
The Times now has a Connections Bot, like the one for Wordle. Go there after you play to receive a numeric score and to have the program analyze your answers. Players who are registered with the Times Games section can now nerd out by following their progress, including number of puzzles completed, win rate, number of times they nabbed a perfect score and their win streak.
Read more: Hints, Tips and Strategies to Help You Win at NYT Connections Every Time
Hints for today’s Connections groups
Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group, to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.
Yellow group hint: Top it off.
Green group hint: Liquid can change forms.
Blue group hint: Big salad, puffy shirt.
Purple group hint: A certain symbol.
Answers for today’s Connections groups
Yellow group: Additional perk.
Green group: Phase transitions for liquids.
Blue group: Concepts from «Seinfeld.»
Purple group: What ‘ can indicate.
Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words
What are today’s Connections answers?
The yellow words in today’s Connections
The theme is additional perk. The four answers are bonus, extra, gravy and icing.
The green words in today’s Connections
The theme is phase transitions for liquids. The four answers are condensation, freezing, melting and vaporization.
The blue words in today’s Connections
The theme is concepts from «Seinfeld.» The four answers are Festivus, regifting, shrinkage and yada yada.
The purple words in today’s Connections
The theme is what ‘ can indicate. The four answers are contraction, foot, possessive and quote.
Technologies
Today’s NYT Connections: Sports Edition Hints and Answers for July 21, #301
Here are hints and the answers for the NYT Connections: Sports Edition puzzle for July 21, No. 301.

Looking for the most recent regular Connections answers? Click here for today’s Connections hints, as well as our daily answers and hints for The New York Times Mini Crossword, Wordle and Strands puzzles.
Golf knowledge is a weak point for me, so I struggled a little with today’s Connections: Sports Edition. It’s nice to see an appearance from one of the best team names in minor league ball. Hello, Yard Goats fans. Stuck? Check out our hints and get the answers.
Connections: Sports Edition is out of beta now, making its debut on Super Bowl Sunday, Feb. 9. That’s a sign that the game has earned enough loyal players that The Athletic, the subscription-based sports journalism site owned by the Times, will continue to publish it. It doesn’t show up in the NYT Games app but now appears in The Athletic’s own app. Or you can continue to play it free online.
Read more: NYT Connections: Sports Edition Puzzle Comes Out of Beta
Hints for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups
Here are four hints for the groupings in today’s Connections: Sports Edition puzzle, ranked from the easiest yellow group to the tough (and sometimes bizarre) purple group.
Yellow group hint: Don’t skip this step.
Green group hint: Par for the course.
Blue group hint: Constitution state.
Purple group hint: Not bored.
Answers for today’s Connections: Sports Edition groups
Yellow group: Get ready for a game.
Green group: Golf wedges.
Blue group: Connecticut teams.
Purple group: _____ board.
Read more: Wordle Cheat Sheet: Here Are the Most Popular Letters Used in English Words
What are today’s Connections: Sports Edition answers?
The yellow words in today’s Connections
The theme is get ready for a game. The four answers are get loose, prepare, stretch and warm up.
The green words in today’s Connections
The theme is golf wedges. The four answers are gap, lob, pitching and sand.
The blue words in today’s Connections
The theme is Connecticut teams. The four answers are Sun, UConn, Yale and Yard Goats.
The purple words in today’s Connections
The theme is _____ board. The four answers are back, leader, skate and surf.
Technologies
I Tried This $40 Smartwatch: It Was Meh, but Not a Complete Waste of Time
The WITHit Giga does the basics for a lot less, but at the expense of accuracy and attention to detail.

I wasn’t expecting much when I first strapped the WITHit Giga Smartwatch onto my wrist, and at least it delivered on that. This $40 smartwatch does the basics: shows notifications, counts your steps, tracks your heart rate (sort of) and lets you take calls from your wrist. But the execution of all these features is where it all starts to fall apart, and I found myself getting exactly what I paid for.
After spending a week testing it, I came away with this: If you just want a basic smartwatch that works with both Android and iPhone, tells the time, tracks your steps and surfaces notifications, this will get the job done, just don’t expect accuracy. But if you can stretch your budget even a little, something like the $75 Amazfit Bip 6 offers more accurate tracking, a more refined design and more reliable performance.
Design and UI: big, bulky, and basic
The WITHit Giga is about as no-frills as smartwatches come. It looks like an Apple Watch Ultra impersonator: metallic frame around a rectangular screen, rounded edges and even Apple Watch-like icons inside. But that’s where the similarities end.
If your wrist is on the smaller side like mine (I have a 6-inch wrist), brace yourself because this is going to look huge. The Giga’s 48.5mm case is overpowering, and there’s no smaller size option. On my wrist, it felt bulky and out of place, and the thick, textured silicone bands definitely didn’t help matters.
The 2.04-inch AMOLED display is decent with a 386×448 resolution, but the screen brightness isn’t adaptive. You’ll need to manually adjust it, which means it’s almost too bright at night and borderline unreadable in direct sunlight unless you increase the brightness manually.
This watch runs its own proprietary system, syncs to the WITHit app and works with both Android and iOS. You’ll get notifications, basic fitness tracking, an always-on display (which in my testing drained the battery fast) and a speaker/mic combo for answering calls.
The UI is straightforward but lacks polish. Swiping right opens your favorites and the side button lets you quickly launch a workout. Animations feel slow and longer text scrolls in awkwardly to fit the screen.
Battery life: Not bad but there’s a catch
Battery life is one of the few things that holds up well here. I got about three days of use with the raise-to-wake option, and roughly a day and a half with the always on display enabled. That’s not bad for the price, and it’s actually better than even some flagship smartwatches.
But the manual comes with a big red flag: «Avoid fast chargers» and don’t overcharge. That’s not something you want to see in 2025, especially because at this point in my smartwatch charger collection I don’t know which one is fast, and which one is not, and the vague warning makes me think it’s going to explode if I make the wrong choice. Charging from an empty battery to full takes about two hours with the included magnetic charger. But once I left it charging overnight and I approached it with terror the next morning thinking I’d broken the «don’t overcharge» rule. Luckily, I came out unscathed.
Health and fitness tracking: lower your expectations
Workout tracking and wellness is where the cracks really show. Yes, the Giga technically tracks heart rate, blood oxygen (SpO2), sleep, stress and menstrual cycles. But the accuracy is questionable at best.
During workouts, heart rate measurements were consistently off when compared to a chest strap and even other wrist-based trackers. The post workout HR average was close enough, but the metrics during the workout were noticeably off. For example, as I was sitting on my Pilates reformer (completely sedentary) starting a workout on the watch, the screen already read «100bpm», while the chest strap and Apple Watch had me at 65 bpm. This made me skeptical of even the resting heart rate readings.
Sleep tracking only works between 10 p.m. and 8 a.m., meaning night shift workers or anyone with an irregular schedule (like this late-night writer) is out of luck.
Sleep stats are also confusing; instead of clear sleep stages or hours of sleep, you get odd comparisons like «fewer than 26% of people in your age group go to sleep this late.» Not exactly sure what I should do with this information.
Menstrual tracking is purely manual, based on averages, with no biological marker detection like temperature tracking. You can’t even log a period directly from the watch and have to do it from the app.
Other smartwatch features
- Calls: As long as your phone is within range, you can answer and make phone calls from the watch with its speaker and mic, but clarity is an issue.
- Texting: You can see texts from messaging apps, but you can’t reply or even send a prewritten response (when paired to an iPhone).
- Voice Assistant: Technically available, but is basically just a shortcut to activate your own phone’s assistant. You tap, and Siri or Google Assistant opens on your phone, not the watch. Not helpful.
- Quick settings: Save your recently used apps in quick settings, which actually made flipping between features like workouts and music controls more convenient — this is a win.
Should you buy it?
The WITHit Giga does the bare minimum you’d expect from a smartwatch, but at the expense of accuracy and attention to detail. For $40, it’s a functional notification mirror with step tracking, call support and a splash of health features (if you’re looking for a general overview at best).
But if you can stretch your budget, something like the $80 Amazfit Bip 6 offers far better value, accurate health tracking, cleaner UI and better battery life.
Bottom line: If you keep your expectations low, and you’re just dipping your toes in the smartwatch waters for the first time, this might suffice. Otherwise, it’s worth paying more for something that feels less like a toy and more like a tool.
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