Your Guide to the New NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament

I love the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament more than anything else. I have run bracket pools since 2002 when I was twelve. The longest conversations I have ever had on the telephone have been with my friend Brent from back home who is equally obsessed. I watched games on a mini-TV while doing the lights for multiple school plays. Hell, I even tried to find a pattern to the 1st round upsets by analyzing each and every bracket since the tourney expanded to 64 teams and breaking it down into 5 year periods. I believed it to be the greatest, purest sporting event ever created. It was perfect. Then, reports surfaced earlier this year that my beloved NCAA Tourney was expanding and most reports had it going to 96 teams. I was crushed. There was no way that my pure love could get crushed by lucrative TV deals and greed. It was all going to be ruined. Until it was announced that the field was only going to be expanded to 68. I wiped away the sweat from my forehead, let out a deep sigh of relief, and said a quick prayer of thanks to Dick Vitale.

All that fun was a few months ago and I had forgotten about it. Then yesterday, the news breaks that the NCAA had unveiled its plans for the 68 team tourney format. When I saw the news I could literally hear Joe Lunardi celebrating, knowing he’d be getting some off-season hours and articles for ESPN. The real surprising thing is that the NCAA seemed to get the format right, but it is confusing so we here at VBR thought a quick guide to the new tournament would help everyone at the water coolers this week.

What We Know

• We know that there will now be 4 “1st round” games that will be called, appropriately, the “First Four.”

• These games will be played on Tuesday and Wednesday nights after Selection Sunday.

• There will be 8 teams included.

• 4 of those teams will be the “last” or “worst” automatic qualifiers. There will be two games. The two winners of the games will be 16 seeds and play #1 seeds. These games will only affect the smaller conferences, usually the ones that played in the play-in games in the past. Think Atlantic Sun, SWAC, and Patriot Leagues (all 16 seeds in 2010).

• The other 4 teams will be the last 4 at-large bids. These “last 4 in” will be announced by the NCAA, fulfilling bracketologists dreams everywhere. There will be two games. The two winners of the games will either be 10, 11, or 12 seeds depending on quality of the teams each year (it could and will change from year to year). According to the NCAA, the teams in those match-ups will be evenly matched.  So for example from the 2010 Tournament, Minnesota and UTEP were two of the last 4 in. In the new format they possibly would have played for a 12 seed.

• This format would have benefited our very own Penn State Nittany Lions two years ago. Two years ago we would have been in the First Four and technically in the NCAA Tournament.

• The Selection Committee will follow the exact same selection process as they had in the past, just for 68 teams now.

What We Don’t Know

• We don’t know exactly when all these games will be played. As I said it is either Tuesday or Wednesday or both. Most likely there will be two games on Tuesday and two games on Wednesday. I would guess that there will be 1 game from the automatic qualifiers and 1 game from the at-larges each night.

• We don’t know where the games will be held. The previous play-in game was played in Dayton. Hopefully two games will be played in Dayton since it is an already established game base there. I would think there would be 1 more site, most likely on the east coast.

• Most importantly, we do not know how it will affect office pools. Those at-large teams that play into the 10, 11, or 12 seeds could beat the 7, 6, or 5 seed. So do you include the First Four in the prediction process? Or maybe just include the at-large games since no 16 seed has ever won a first round (now called the “second round) game? That’s something for ESPN and various people running office pools to figure out. Since I have ran an office pool for 8 years, I feel like I could lend my opinion here. Since the First Four games would be on Tuesday, that means there would only be 1 day to pick the brackets. However if the First Four aren’t included in the picks, then the brackets will need to be picked after the games end on Wednesday night because those 10, 11, or 12 seeds could win in the “second” round. I would include picking only the at-large games. It adds 2 more picks and a little more riskiness and strategy. Since ESPN, Yahoo, and CBS run the biggest bracket competitions, whatever they choose to do will most likely become law.

I believe that this format is the best possible solution and will keep the integrity of the best sporting event on the planet intact. It is exactly what I would of done in this situation. Usually the final at-large bids come down to 4-8 teams. By including the “bubble teams” the NCAA hopes to end controversy over the picks. Of course there will still be controversy over who gets in, but I think that it will be quelled enough that talk of more expansion will be silenced for at least a little longer. I am looking forward to more excitement and hopefully more moments like my favorite two NCAA Tournament moments and calls of all-time: