Why is the NCAA bracket now 65 teams instead of 64?

[climbhi]

[SOLVED] NCAA Wierdness

Woohoo, March Madness is just around the corner, I can't wait, college basketball is as good as it gets. But I have just one question I was wondering if anyone knew the answer to. I've seen multiple news casts now and media articles saying that it was a 65 team bracket. What the heck is going on. That doesn't work, if their playing as normal it has to be a power of 2, like 64. 65 teams won't work. What is happening? Did they mess up somehow, or have they changed the format of play or what? Just wondering...

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

It looks to me that there is an opening game. The winner of that plays Texas. So there are really 66 teams?

Whatever it is, I'm really happy 3 WI teams made it in. UW, MU and UWM!

 

[spacemanspiff]

i'm pretty sure there are 65 teams.
::looks at brackett::
there used to be 64 but now they have a "play in" game. so two teams play for the right to one of the 16 seeds so they can promptly get their ass kicked by the 1 seed.

three WI teams? who is UM?

GO BLUE DEVILS!
and the ACC/SEC in general.
silly midwest teams think they have a chance.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

spacemanspiff sounds right.

MU: Marquette University
UW: University of Wisconsin (Madison)
UWM: University of Wisconsin Milwaukee (where I go!)

 

[spacemanspiff]

i had no idea that Marquette was in this state. I have no idea where most of the schools in the tournament are.

i'm at UW-madison. it's spring break so i don't see a lot of undergrads around cheering the team on.

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

I'm a little shocked by you being in UW and not knowing that Marquette is in WI. MU is about 10min away from UWM actually. Where are you originally from?

 

[spacemanspiff]

oh I'm new in the area. I haven't even had a cheese curd yet. I'm still not even sure what these Dells people speak of are. i have no idea what kind of operation you wisconsonites have running here. definately need to work on the weather though

I'm here via originally Atlanta and recently Boston.

 

[climbhi]

Originally posted by Greg Bernhardt
Whatever it is, I'm really happy 3 WI teams made it in. UW, MU and UWM!

Yeah I was pretty happy all three of the major Utah schools made it in too, U of U, USU, and BYU. The U of U (my school by chance) is about the only one that stands a chance though...

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

Weber St. made it and that in Utah right?

 

[N_Quire]

I'll be moving to Milwaukee in July and am thinking of attending some classes at Marquette. It looks a good, small school. What's Milwaukee like? A small Chicago?

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

A small Chicago?

A very small chicago, lol. MKE is a nice place, but it is a small market city. Try to get to the east coast, near the lake. It's really beautiful there during spring and summer. Marquette is right downtown and is regarded as a top school in WI.

 

[selfAdjoint]

My daughter went to Marquette (in Industrial engineering). We went around to a lot of colleges and she felt most comfortable at Marquette. It's a Jesuit school, if that bothers you. It's right down town and the city flows around it. Pam really liked it and she turned me into a fan of MU basketball.

As for Milwaukee, it's larger than most midwestern cities and has all the urban stuff, good and bad. You can't generalize because being pretty big, it has all kinds of neighborhoods. But yes, it's not far from Chicago in more than one sense of the word.

 

[Njorl]

Weber St over Wisconsin and Mil-Wisconsin over Notre Dame are two of my three first round upset picks. The other is Penn over Ok St - not that you care.

Second round upsets - LSU over Texas, Connecticut over Stanford and St. Joe's over Wake Forest.

Rest of tourney, since I went this far:

Louisville over Oklahoma
Syracuse over St. Joe's
Syracuse over Louisville

UCONN over LSU
Xavier over Florida
Xavier over UConn

Kansas over Duke
Arizona over Illinois
Arizona over Kansas

Pittsburg over Marquette
Kentucky over Dayon
Kentucky over Pittburgh

THen, Kentucky over Syracuse in the national championship

It's weird, I think the 4 best teams, Kentucky, Arizona, Pittsburgh and Kansas are all on the same half of the bracket.

Njorl

 

[climbhi]

Originally posted by Greg Bernhardt
Weber St. made it and that in Utah right?

Oh yes I forgot, Weber State too, that make four, and to think their only 30 minutes from my school... I can't believe I forgot Weber State, they're the upset specials of all time (well not quite of all time but they do consistently pull off some pretty good upsets!)

 

[Greg Bernhardt]

WOOHOO! Marquette beat Holy Cross today to get into the second round!

WI and Weber St. play later today, should be a great game!

 

[RuroumiKenshin]

what does NCAA stand for?

 

[N_Quire]

Majin, I'm a member. It's the National Council for Arthritic Athletes.

There's another one that is something like National Collegiate Athletic Association (I may have that one a little wrong but will no doubt be corrected).