New Look for Bracket Pairings

Remember UCLA’s first-round game against Hofstra in the NCAA tournament last year? Then you probably remember the thousands of empty seats in the Greensboro Coliseum, capacity 18,945.

NCAA men’s basketball chairman Lee Fowler noticed. So did the other nine members of the Division I committee that oversee the NCAA tournament. And that is why they voted to make changes to the bracket pairings that appear drastic but in reality may have minimal impact.

The drastic part? No longer will each of the two four-team groups in a sub-regional be assigned to that region. For example, first-round West Regional games at Albuquerque could consist of four-team groups from the Midwest and South regions.

It is designed to reduce travel costs, make the sub-regionals more geographically desirable to fans and avoid situations like the West sub-regional in Boise, Idaho, a year ago.

Among the teams assigned to that site were Maryland, Georgetown, George Mason, Georgia State and Hampton, making it next to impossible for fans of those schools to follow their teams into the tournament.

The Eastern schools were not alone. California played Fresno State in a first-round South game at Memphis, Tenn. Only 8,602 spectators bought tickets for the game in the 19,000-seat Pyramid.

The number that stands out the most is that first- and second-round games played to 80.2% capacity last year, down 13.7% from 2000 and the lowest since the NCAA began compiling its list in 1989. And that number represents tickets sold.

Under the new system, the committee will use the same 1-16 seeding system but try to pair teams together geographically.

Using Maryland as an example, the Terrapins would have played George Mason in a first-round West Region game at Uniondale, N.Y. Georgetown would have played Arkansas at Kansas City, Mo., an easier destination for Hoya and Razorback fans.

After the first two rounds, nothing changes. The regional semifinals and finals will remain as planned: Syracuse, N.Y., in the East; Lexington, Ky., in the South; Madison, Wis., in the Midwest, and San Jose in the West.

While Fowler and the committee are selecting the field of 65 teams, which will be announced today, the sub-regional assignments will be almost as important. What could the brackets look like this year?

According to Jerry Palm’s Web site collegerpi.com that features a mock tournament bracket, Gonzaga, ranked sixth by the Associated Press, and Oregon, the Pacific 10 regular-season champion, could both be seeded fourth and play in Sacramento. Gonzaga would be in the West region, Oregon the Midwest.

Kentucky could get a No. 2 seeding in the East but would play its opening-round game in St. Louis instead of Pittsburgh. The opposite would be true of Cincinnati, which could be a No. 2 in the Midwest and play in nearby Pittsburgh instead of St. Louis or Chicago.

In Palm’s example, Pittsburgh would benefit most of all. The Panthers could be eligible to play in their home city because they play their home games on campus and the regional is at Mellon Arena, designated a “neutral” site.

The changes appear to help teams seeded No. 2 through No. 4. Top-seeded teams, like Duke or Kansas, would be sent to nearby regionals as they always have. If a team is seeded No. 8 or No. 9, the changes won’t have any impact.

UCLA or Stanford, which could end up in that category, can expect a long flight. The committee can fine-tune the pairings only so much. If a team is seeded No. 16, it will happily go wherever the NCAA tells it to go.

The facts are 31 conference tournament winners and regular-season champions without a tournament get automatic bids. The remaining 34 teams are selected on an at-large bids.