Since the NCAA Tournament field grew to 68 teams in 2011, one of the most confusing bits of phraseology around the sport has been the NCAA’s insistence on calling the First Four ‘the first round’. This has been perplexing for anyone who has ever dug through College Basketball Reference pages or tried to explain how their favorite team’s first NCAA Tournament game technically occurred in the second round.
March Madness’ 1st round will actually be called the 1st round again -- in 2016
Breaking: the NCAA announces plan to start making sense two years from now.
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Ricky O'Donnell has covered basketball at all levels for more than a decade at SB Nation. He’s currently the Associate Director of Programming.
This won’t be an issue after this year. In a rare moment of sensibility for the NCAA, the round of 64 will now be called the ‘first round’ and the round of 32 will again be the ‘second round’:
Rounds of 64 and 32 will return to being called the first and second rounds in 2016: pic.twitter.com/IO1NJH9mss
— NCAA March Madness (@marchmadness) November 17, 2014 Of course, this is the NCAA so the plan to start making sense doesn’t happen for two years. Alas, these are baby steps but they are still appreciated.
It was silly. It's the first round. We love extra basketball, we're ok with play-in games, but don't feed us crap about it being a "round".
— East Coast Bias (@ECoastBias) November 17, 2014 In other NCAA Tournament news, Dayton will remain the home of the First Four through 2018. The NCAA also announced the locations of the preliminary rounds from 2016-2018. None of this is taking place in the Bahamas.
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