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The NCAA, the NAIA, and the NJCAA all sponsor
postseason national championship tournaments. The men’s and women’s NCAA
national championship basketball tournaments are the most high-profile
of these tournaments. They are also two of the premier sporting events
in the United States. Both tournaments are held in March and early
April, using the same format to determine a national champion. Each
tournament involves 64 teams in a single-elimination competition,
meaning that one loss disqualifies a team from further play.
The selection process for deciding which teams will participate in the
tournament is complex. Teams are invited to the tournament either as
automatic qualifiers or as at-large teams. Automatic qualifiers gain
admission by winning their conference tournament at the end of the
season, or if the conference does not hold a tournament, by finishing
the season with the best conference record. After the automatic
qualifiers are determined, a special committee fills out the 64-team
field by choosing at-large teams, using a number of factors. These
include a team’s final record for that season, its performance in past
championship tournaments, and the Ratings Percentage Index (RPI), which
uses statistics to analyze the team’s strengths compared to other teams.
In some years, such as in 2001, the tournament will choose several
schools to play special qualifying games to fill out the field.
The 64 teams are placed into four regional tournaments: East, West,
South, and Midwest in men’s play; East, Mideast, Midwest, and West in
women’s play. The 16 teams assigned to each regional draw are a mix of
colleges and universities from across the country. In each region they
are seeded, or ranked, from 1 to 16 according to their strength and
season schedule (with the 1 seed the strongest team). A seeded team
assigned to a specific region should be on par with its corresponding
seed in the other three regional draws. For example, a team ranked as
the 10 seed in the Midwest regional draw should be of equal strength to
the 10 seed in the East regional draw.
In each region, the higher ranked teams play the lower ranked teams: the
1 seed plays the 16 seed, the 2 seed plays the 15 seed, and so on.
Winning teams advance and continue to play until only one unbeaten team
remains. This team then advances to the Final Four, the national
semifinals. There is no seeding in the Final Four. Instead, it is
predetermined which two regional winners will meet in each semifinal
game. The championship game pits the victors of these two games against
each other. The team that triumphs in the Final Four is crowned the
national champion.
Fan support is intense throughout the tournament, and visiting fans
provide an economic windfall for the various cities hosting tournament
games. Cities therefore bid for the right to host games, and the sites
are chosen several years in advance to allow the cities time to prepare
for the tournament. The tournament has produced a unique vocabulary over
the years. The excitement generated is referred to as March Madness,
while the entire event is often called the Road to the Final Four or the
Big Dance.
Although the NCAA tournament is the most widely recognized of collegiate
postseason tournaments, the National Invitation Tournament (NIT) is the
oldest and was originally the most prestigious. The NIT was first held
in 1938, with Temple University winning. At first, college teams could
compete in both the NIT and the NCAA tournament. Beginning in the 1950s,
however, teams began participating in either the NIT or NCAA tournament,
based on their season record, with the better teams generally accepting
invitations to the NCAA tournament. This tendency became stronger over
time, and now the NCAA tournament winner is regarded as the national
collegiate basketball champion. The NIT, however, remains an important
postseason activity for teams that do not qualify for the NCAA
tournament. The City College of New York (CCNY) is the only school to
win both the NIT and the NCAA tournament in the same season,
accomplishing this feat in 1950. Shortly after this the rules were
changed to make it impossible for a team to play both tournaments.
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