With four losses in their last five games, the Kansas Jayhawks will be on upset watch when they take on a talented Samford Bulldogs team in an always tricky 4 vs. 13 matchup tonight. The SoCo champs will have some extra motivation as they make their first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2000, while the Jayhawks are trying to get back to the second week of the Big Dance after an early exit as a top seed last year.
The game is supposed to start very soon, sometime around 9:55 p.m. ET (about 30 minutes following the conclusion of Gonzaga vs McNeese State). It will be televised on TBS. Whether you want to watch Kansas vs Samford, or want to watch March Madness in its entirety, we have some different options for watching a live stream of the games for free or cheap.
Is There a Free Kansas vs Samford Live Stream?
Whether you want to watch this game only or all 48 games from the opening weekend, YouTube TV (“Base Plan”) and DirecTV Stream (“Entertainment” package or above) stand out as the top two free options.
Each streaming service includes CBS (live in most markets), TBS, TNT and truTV, and each comes with a five-day free trial. So, not only can you watch Kansas vs Samford tonight, but you’ll be able to watch every game on Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday before you exhaust your free trial.
Those are clearly the best two free options, but if you’ve already used up your free trial for each service, you can watch Kansas vs Samford on the March Madness Live app or website. You can watch unrestricted for three hours before you’ll need to sign in with a cable provider in order to keep watching.
Other Ways to Watch the Kansas vs Samford Live Stream
Though it’s not quite free, a one-month subscription to Max ($10) is going to be about as good as it gets in terms of value for college basketball fans during this tournament. Max’s B/R Sports add-on (which is currently included with a Max subscription at no extra cost) will stream every single game that’s being televised on truTV, TBS or TNT. That will cover 24 of the 32 first-round games and most of the rest of the tourney, including both Final Four games and the national championship.
If you want the CBS games, Paramount+ (the “with SHOWTIME” option) will get you all of those for $12 after a seven-day free trial.
The next cheapest way to watch Kansas vs Samford would be Sling TV‘s “Sling Orange” channel package, which includes TBS, TNT and 30 other channels for just $15 for your first month. If you want the truTV games, you’ll want to include the “Entertainment Extra” add-on for another $6, while the aforementioned Paramount+ option can be used for the CBS games.
All together, that’s just $33 to watch the entire tournament. That’s slightly more expensive than the Max and Paramount+ option, but this way will also get you the ESPN channels so you can watch Caitlin Clark and the women’s tourney, as well.
How to Watch the Kansas vs Samford Live Stream from Abroad
A virtual private network (VPN), which hides your IP address/location and encrypts your data, is nice to have simply for the added security and privacy. But it’s also quite handy if you need to stream content from another country, as it can bypass geo-locks by connecting you digitally to a server located somewhere else in the world.
NordVPN is fast and reliable, and it works with YouTube TV, DirecTV Stream, Sling, Max and Paramount+. Though it doesn’t offer your prototypical free trial, you can try it out risk-free thanks to its 30-day money-back promise.
