Every March, madness descends upon college basketball fans as the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament begins. This tournament features nearly 20 percent of all the teams playing men's basketball at the Division I level, and it occurs at regional locations across the U.S. "March Madness," as it is known, has been going for more than 70 years and remains one of the most popular sporting events in America.
Creation
The first NCAA men's basketball tournament occurred in 1939, when Kansas University coach Phog Allen and Northwestern coach Dutch Lonborg led the charge for a tournament to determine a collegiate national champion. That year, Oregon won over a field consisting of eight teams. The tournament lost money in its first year, but the following year it earned about $10,000. The tournament continued to grow in popularity over the years -- as recently as 2005, the tournament earned $375 million off television rights alone.
Team Selection
Teams can enter the NCAA tournament through one of two ways: by winning your conference's tournament, which is awarded with an automatic bid to the tournament, or by receiving an at-large bid from the NCAA selection committee -- these bids are awarded by a panel of the NCAA's basketball officials and are based on merit. Teams prefer to win the conference tournament to make the national tournament and avoid the anticipation of finding out whether they are admitted to the national tournament, which often occurs on selection Sunday.
Expansion
Expansion has been a gradual process over the years. With more than 300 Division I teams eligible to make the end-of-season tournament and the large sums of money that can be generated, the NCAA has repeatedly examined the viability of expanding the tournament to include more teams and become more profitable. For many years, a 64-team field was practiced before an extra team was added in 2001 to accommodate a guaranteed spot for the new Mountain West Conference without eliminating an at-large bid. Effective in 2011, the NCAA has decided to further expand the field to 68 teams. Discussion over expanding to an even larger format, such as 96 games, has been discussed, but no serious bids to make the change have occurred.
Schedule
Although the first NCAA men's basketball tournament only featured eight teams, the new 68-team field requires many more rounds, starting with an initial play-in round in which eight 16-seeds play four games and the winners advance to play a No. 1 seed. From there, the first and second rounds pare down the competitive field from 64 to 32 and then the Sweet 16 -- these rounds each take two days and together fill a four-day period. The next week, the field of 16 is cut down to the Elite Eight and, then, the Final Four, again playing out over the course of four days. The Final Four Field plays the following weekend with two games, usually on a Saturday, that produce two winners competing in the national championship game, often held on a Monday.
Member Comments