New format for 68 team NCAA tournament released

The new format for the 68 team NCAA tournament has been released. There will now be 4 opening round games. The final four at large teams will meet in 2 of those games. Then the final four automatic qualifiers will meet in the other 2 games. There will be games on Tuesday and Wednesday with teams playing Tuesday then playing in games on Thursday and teams playing Wednesday playing on Friday. It looks like Dayton will still be the host for the opening round games which will now be shown on truTv. Full details are in this article:

http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/news/story?id=5374116

I just realized I put this under non sports instead of the tavern. So one of the mods may want to move this thread

truTV is the best they could do...? Gues people really aren't all that interested in watching Canisius vs. Farleigh Dickinson. :rolleyes:

I just don't feel that 68 teams is enough. Some teams will be left out. My suggestion would be to expand the field to 72 teams, so that those first four teams left out can be included. If there are still four teams upset about being left out, then expand it to 76. If there are still four teams upset about being left out, then expand it to 80. If there are still...

Okay, being serious, I don't see why they couldn't have left it at the perfectly symmetrical 64 a few years ago, but if they must patronize/pacify these extra four teams by letting them in, then I do like what they're doing with it.

As for truTV, though, Directv hasn't seen fit to add it to its HD lineup yet. I wonder if this will change that?

This is stupid, should have kept it at 64.

Not a big fan of it at all. 64/65 was enough. This just makes the regular season less meaningful, especially for the bubble teams.

Going to have to get the sheets in a couple days sooner.

This makes a very simple and logical process needlessly more complicated. The winners of the at large games will be seated in the middle of a bracket, like maybe a 10, 11 or 12 seed. It means your brackets will need to be in by Tuesday.

Does the TruTV revenue really make this worthwhile?