NCAA plans for ‘First Four’ in tournament

Associated Press

INDIANAPOLIS

Get ready for a First Four before the Final Four.

The NCAA unveiled its plans for the expanded 68-team men’s basketball tournament on Monday, opting for a format that involves the lowest seeds and last at-large qualifiers in a “First Four” round.

Beginning next March, eight teams will play early in the first week, with the winners advancing to games on Thursday or Friday.

The NCAA decided against picking the lowest eight seeds for the new round. Instead, two of the early games will match the tournament’s lowest seeds, Nos. 65 through 68, with the winners advancing to play a top seed. The other two games will match the last four at-large qualifiers.

The format probably will prevent mid-majors from being over-represented in the first round, and could also mean that two teams from bigger conferences — those generally seeded between 11th and 13th — will be out before the tournament really gets going.

“You’re not going to come up with the perfect model,” committee chair Dan Guerrero said. “You’re not going to come up with a model that is going to appease every constituency out there. But we felt that this model provided the opportunity to do something special for the tournament.”

The NCAA announced in April that it would add three teams to the field, the first expansion since the tournament went from 64 teams to 65 in 2001 after going from 48 to 64 in 1985.

The NCAA decided against a larger expansion to 80 or even 96 teams. It settled on 68 and its new 14-year, $10.8 billion television package with CBS Sports and Turner Broadcasting not only ensures that every game will be televised but gives the NCAA sole authority to expand again.

All four of the “First Four” games will be broadcast on Turner’s truTV cable channel.

The at-large teams will be seeded where they would normally be placed in the bracket, meaning a first-round game between two No. 10 seeds would result in the winner advancing to play a No. 7 seed.

“I think some people are going to look at it and say it looks like a compromise,” said Laing Kennedy, retired Kent State athletic director who is on the that developed the new format. “What we look at is that it really does preserve the integrity of the 31 automatic qualifiers.”

Gene Smith, Ohio State’s athletic director and a member of the committee, said there was no consensus on a favored format from the NCAA membership and “we were a little surprised.”

“It also made it a little more difficult to come out to where we were,” Smith said.