It also dates back to when the basketball tournament truly was regionalized. There were no at-large bids, you had to win your conference tournament to get in or be the top independent. Each of the conferences was designated to a region, so some regions would have 7 teams while others would have 6. This helped UCLA a lot during their run, since they didn't play anyone near their caliber until the Final Four (usually a bye and a quick dispatching of two lesser teams), while the schools in the other conferences had tougher roads.
In 1971, USC was ranked #2 in the country and didn't make the tournament, because they couldn't beat UCLA. In 1974, Maryland was ranked #3 in the country and didn't make the tournament, because they couldn't beat North Carolina. In response, the NCAA bumped the tournament up to 32 teams. At this point, they also allowed teams to leave their regions for the sake of seeding. The tournament eventually grew to 64 teams by 1985, where it's been ever since. In some of the lesser (i.e. don't make money) tournaments the usual pattern is to figure out who the eligible teams are, give the top teams seeds and have them host a 4-team bracket (called pods), and do the rest by geography, even if that makes for some unbalanced brackets. All NCAA sports also have what is called the 400 mile rule, meaning that any travel during a tournament must be by ground transportation if the distance between your school and the tournament site is less than 400 miles. To try to maximize this, they will often try to get all 4 schools in a grouping to be within 400 miles where possible into a pod, or get three in a pod and allow one to travel by air. In soccer, baseball or softball, where there is a disproportionate amount of schools in the South and West, they will often give a lesser team hosting privileges in order to keep the travel at a minimum. The only sports where the NCAA makes any money on the tournament is men's basketball and men's hockey. Everything else loses money, so saving $$$ is the key. Basketball doesn't quite go to the extremes as the others do in respect to the 400 mile rule, so you'll see a lot more time zone hopping. Also, since the NCAA considers "a flight is a flight" once it's beyond the 400 mile rule, a three time zone jaunt is not unexpected. --Mike -- TV or Not TV .... The Smartest (TV) People! You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "TV or Not TV" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/tvornottv?hl=en
