In the NCAA’s latest move to give us things that nobody wants, the 76-team NCAA Tournament is now official for both the men’s and women’s basketball tournaments. The NCAA made the move a while back to expand from 64 to 68 teams, giving us a ‘First Four.’ Now we’ll have 12 teams in what they’re calling the ‘Opening Round.’
The men’s tournament will feature three games each on Tuesday and Wednesday. Dayton will remain a host site for three of the games with second host city to be named later.
The tournament
will be structured as follows — an 11-11 matchup, two 12-12 matchups (at-large teams), a 15-15 game and two 16-16 games (AQ teams). The winners will advance to the traditional 64-team bracket.
So the NCAA will move from 37 at-large bids to 44. 32 automatic bids will be handed out to conference champions with the return of the Pac-12.
As for the “why” behind all of this? You already know.
So the bubble will now be even more open to average to below-average big-conference teams like Auburn, Oregon, Marquette, Ohio State, Oklahoma, Indiana, etc. from this season. At least they’ll have to play their way into the actual 64-team bracket early in the week, I guess.
The NCAA is also seemingly headed towards a 24-team bracket in football, once again chasing the money. It worth asking at this point — where does it end?
