First Four

The NCAA announced Monday that is expanding the NCAA men’s basketball tournament field to 68 teams. But there is a catch. Those extra four teams will play a “first-round” game before the tournament actually starts.

Confused?

There will be 4 extra teams chosen to participate. The final two teams to receive at-large bids, and the final two teams to automatically qualify, will play against each other to decide who moves on to the Big Dance and the field of 64.

They have been talking about expanding the Tourney for years. Every year there is bound to be many bubble teams who don’t make the tournament and every year those teams and their fans call for expansion. There was talk of expanding to 96 teams, which is just kind of ridiculous, so I’m glad the NCAA went this route.

These “First Four” teams and their games should start the tournament off on an exciting foot. No longer will it be just two small schools playing against each other to determine who gets their ass kicked by the number one seeded team.

Now these games are going to be more hyped up, with schools that have larger national audiences and fan bases. These will no longer be throw-away games. Well, one still will be. The automatic qualifiers will play each other, and that game will still be for a chance to lose to number one seed. But the other game, between the final two at-large teams, will be for a chance to be higher than a 16 seed. Those two teams will fill in as a number 12 or number 10, wherever that at-large bid was placed in the seeding.

“The teams selected for these games will be like teams,” tournament selection committee chairman Dan Guerrero said. “We felt if we were going to expand the field it would create better drama for the tournament if the First Four was much more exciting. They could all be on the 10 line or the 12 line or the 11 line. We won’t know until the seeding takes place and the principles and procedures are used and the teams are slotted appropriately.”

In addition, the even bigger news is that this will be the first time that the final “at-large” teams will be revealed. In the past the at-large teams were scattered around the bracket, usually no higher than a 12-seed. Most people guessed who the at-large bids were. But this year it will be publically announced and you’ll know just how close your team was to the bubble.

What do you think of this new Tournament expansion?

[source] [photo]