In April, after announcing that the NCAA men’s basketball tournament would be expanded to 68 teams, for how the expanded field would be handled, NCAA officials finally announced their plans. A mini round of “First Four.” could be considered. The lowest seeds and the last at-large teams that qualified for the tournament will be included in this initial round.

To comprise this new round, the NCAA initially was considering going with the lowest eight seeds but decided against this in the end. In the first round of the tournament, for mid-major schools that have generally had too many schools represented, this is probably bad news. This could mean that, in this early round, two lower seeded teams could be eliminated, as far as the bigger conferences are concerned.

In the past nine years, this is the 2nd time the field has been expanded after in 2001, one team was added. Going from 48 to 64 teams in 1985, the tournament had a major expansion. Considering the other options that were being discussed this new format will probably go over pretty well, although it will not please everyone involved. This will be the end of expansion for a long while, for most experts and fans, but who really knows when it will end, as long as TV revenues continue to rise.

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