NCAA Tournament Opening Round Game

         In honor of the start of the 2010 NCAA tournament, it’s time to discuss one of the most pointless games in one of the best sporting events of the year, the opening round game. The first game of the NCAA tournament is played on the Tuesday after Selection Sunday between the two lowest seeded, automatic bid teams. The winner has the honor of playing one of the number one seeds in the first round of the NCAA Tournament. If you ever wondered why 65 teams, as opposed to 64, make it into the tournament, it’s because of this extra game. This year, the opening round game is between Winthrop, winner of Big South Conference, and Arkansas-Pine Bluff, winner of the Southwestern Athletic Conference. The victor then plays Duke in the first round. Is it me or is this game 100% useless?

The Play-In Game

Originally named the “play-in game,” the NCAA now refers to it as the “opening round game” because technically the two teams playing in it are in 
the NCAA tournament, but in my opinion, they aren’t, and they really shouldn’t be considered so. There is a reason why it was once referred to as the play-in game, because the teams are in fact playing in order to be apart of the real game in the real tournament. It’s sad, but it’s true, the opening round game isn’t part of the NCAA tournament. That’s very unfortunate for the teams playing in it because they did earn a spot by winning their respective conference tournament, but one of them will not get the opportunity that they so rightfully earned. This is yet another case of the NCAA discriminating against non-power conference teams because you will NEVER see a power conference winner play in the play in game, they are too good. That leaves us with 2 options to fix this problem and make it fair for the two teams that earned an automatic bid into the tournament:

Elimination Of

There has been an unbelievable amount of talk about expanding the field of the NCAA tournament to 96 teams, in fact, I even wrote an entry about in February. But I’m proposing we shorten the field of 65 teams to 64 teams, and in doing so eliminating the opening round game. Yes, one at large team will be dropped from the tournament, but is it that big of a deal if one team is dropped? I’m sure no bubble team is THAT good that they have to play in the tournament and it’s an absolute travesty if they don’t because one spot was cut. It makes the tournament more exclusive and the teams that get automatic bids actually get to play in the tournament, not a chance to play in the tournament. The elimination of the opening round game is the best thing that could happen to this pointless game, even if it does come at the cost of an at-large bid.

Change the Teams That Play in the Game

Although a little more difficult, another option is letting two at-large teams play in the opening round game. In this option, all automatic bids play a game in the first round, while the last two teams in play in the opening round game. The winner, instead of playing a number 1 seed, would be inserted against a different seed, one that they would play if they hadn’t been selected to play in the opening round game. For example, this year Utah State was probably the last team in the tournament, they have a 12 seed and play Texas A&M in the first round. Conversely, Mississippi State was probably the first team out. In this idea, Utah State and Mississippi State play against each other in the opening round game and the winner plays Texas A&M in the first round. Like I said, this is a little more difficult of an idea to set up in the tournament, but at least it is better than the way it is now because both competitors haven’t earned a tournament spot by winning their conference tournaments.