Bracket Regional locations (Geography over natural seed order)

   I am obsessed with how the bracket is built.  The process of putting together a bracket is extremely for the committee to deal with.  There are many stages of building the bracket, but in this article I want to explain how sometimes we get some very weird match ups and locations where teams have to play.  We have all seen our favorite team at some point have to play 1000's of miles from campus in the NCAA tournament and I will try to explain why that happens.

    First, I would like to give a little background on the situation and the way this situation has played out in the past.  The committee has not always used geography as it's number one priority for seeding, but due to travel cost for teams over the last several years it has become a top priority.  The top 4 seed lines(top 20 teams) are geographically protected in the bracket.  What that means is regardless of anything else each school will be placed in the closest location to their campus before any other factor on a side note the remaining teams will be seeded geographically to the best of the committees ability but have no guarantee.

   There are several issues that can throw this off though.  For example, teams who are from the same conference will not meet until the Regional Final if they played 3 or more times, they will not play until the Regional Semifinal if they played 2 times and teams who played once during the regular season can not meet until the round of 32. Beyond that no top 4 seed will be placed in a position where they could have a crowd disadvantage in the round of 64. These criteria are particularly important because the leagues that have many high seeded teams (i.e. ACC & Big 12) may have teams who will have to travel farther due to tournament requirements.

   The other big factor geographically is generally the West coast teams have not had a high number of top seeds in the NCAA tournament over the last several years and that will often force a team from the Midwest or East Coast to play in the West bracket or in a Western first round location despite being a higher seed(this will generally effect the 4 seeds the most because they are the last groups seeded.  Nonetheless generally there are enough first round sites that allow the best teams to play in locations that fit their needs on the first weekend and they will not run into travel issues until the Regional round of the tournament the following weekend.  Below I will give an example of how this process can get warped.

Example:

In the NCAA tournament there are 8 first round sites, from 4 geographical locations(2 sites in each location West, East, Midwest, and South), where the first weekend of the NCAA tournament takes place and then 4 regional sites where the sweet 16 and Elite 8.  This years locations are:

Round of 64 and 32:    Jacksonville, Florida
                                     Charlotte, North Carolina
                                     Louisville, Kentucky
                                     Columbus, Ohio
                                     Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania
                                     Omaha, Nebraska
                                     Portland, Oregon
                                     Seattle, Washington

I want to make a quick note here that this years sites are a little bit more bizarre than the past because the breakdown appears to be like this:

                                          East:   Pittsburgh and Charlotte
                                          South: Louisville and Jacksonville
                                          Midwest:  Omaha and Columbus
                                          West: Portland and Seattle

I mention this because it can be argued that Omaha is closer to being a this West coast site than another Midwest site.  That is particularly important because as I mentioned there are generally not as many West coast teams and that may force even more travel issues than normal because Omaha is a farther West site than the normal Midwest locations.  Also only 2 pods can be in each location so 8 total games.  That is where problems often occur because if there are 3 or 4 teams whose ideal geographical location is in the same pod the lowest seeds of that group will have to be placed in a slightly worse geographical location.  Now to the regional sites:

Round of 16 and 8:          East: Syracuse, New York
                                         South: Houston, Texas
                                        Midwest: Cleveland, Ohio
                                        West: Los Angeles, California

I don't necessarily think these sites have as much effect because as we see every year brackets will be busted and teams from all over the country will play their way into these Regional Finals so travel wise these are not as important except for the high seeds who anticipate that they will be making this round.  Now that we have the sites outlined lets go through a mock selection and where the top 4 seeds would be placed.  These seed lines will be based on where I have teams projected at this moment, but this will obviously change as the season progresses.

1 seeds:              1. Kentucky        Midwest Region - Cleveland, Ohio
                                                      First round location: Louisville Kentucky  

                          2. Virginia           East Region - Syracuse, New York
                                                      First round location: Charlotte, North Carolina

                          3. Duke               South Region- Houston, Texas
                                                     First round location: Charlotte, North Carolina

                         4. Villanova        West Region- Los Angeles, California
                                                     First round location: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

Right off the bat obviously the one seeds get ideal locations to play.  There could be an argument Virginia would be sent to Pittsburgh instead but given that Charlotte is an hour closer they would most likely be placed there.  The biggest issue would be for Villanova if they were to make it to the Sweet 16 they would have to travel to Los Angeles.  The other team that may have difficulty with location would be Duke who in this instance would have to travel to Houston for the Sweet 16.  That is the problem though with this case because in this scenario three of the four teams are based on the East coast so obviously that will create travel issues for the regional round.  If someone like Gonzaga was a #1 seed as some project things would work out much better geographically because they would obviously be placed in the West and in Los Angeles.  Nonetheless the first round locations are very favorable.  Now lets see how the #2 seeds would shake out in this scenario.

2 seeds:             5. Wisconsin     Midwest Region- Cleveland, Ohio
                                                    First round location: Omaha, Nebraska

                         6. Gonzaga        West Region- Los Angeles, California
                                                    First round location: Seattle, Washington

                        7. Arizona         South Region- Houston, Texas
                                                  First round location: Portland, Oregon  
                       
                        8. Kansas          East Region- Syracuse, New York
                                                  First round location: Omaha, Nebraska

This group is very interesting because they actually help the teams below them location-wise in that they all are placed in the 3 farthest West locations.  Teams on the East coast are in a much more favorable position because of this.  Also, it is interesting to note that in this scenario Villanova being the last #1 seed is actually at a disadvantage over being the top #2 seed.  In this case they would potentially meet Gonzaga in Los Angeles in the West semi-final which would be a huge disadvantage.  If they were just one seed line lower and the top #2 seed they would be in the East Region and playing in Syracuse, New York.  This is a perfect example of how it is not always better to be the last #1 seed.  Another interesting thing is that once again because of geographical preference being the #1 factor the #1 overall seed Kentucky and #1 2 seed Wisconsin would actually be in the same bracket.

3 seeds:           9. Iowa St.        South Region- Houston, Texas
                                                 First round location: Louisville, Kentucky

                     10. Notre Dame  Midwest Region- Cleveland, Ohio
                                                 First round location: Columbus, Ohio

                     11. Maryland      East Region- Syracuse, New York
                                                 First round location: Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

                     12. Oklahoma    West Region- Los Angeles, California
                                                First round location: Columbus, Ohio

This is where things start to get really interesting as the list of locations begins to dwindle. First, Iowa St. despite being the best overall #3 seed has really poor travel requirements basically because there are no ideal locations for them.  Their best place would have been Omaha, Nebraska but given that Wisconsin and Kansas both claimed that site because it is the best travel for them that leaves Iowa St. going all the way to Louisville and then if they were able to advance to Houston which in no way is ideal.  On the other hand Notre Dame has almost perfect travel because the Midwest sites remained open.  Both locations they would potentially play in in this scenario are extremely ideal and very easy travel and the same goes for Maryland.  This really shows how the randomness of the top teams can truly affect teams travel requirements.  The 4 seeds is where we see geographical advantage completely fall apart.

4 seeds:        13. West Virginia  East Region- Syracuse, New York
                                                   First round location: Jacksonville, Florida

                    14. Utah                 West Region- Los Angeles, California
                                                   First round location: Portland, Oregon

                    15. Northern Iowa Midwest Region- Cleveland, Ohio
                                                  First round location: Seattle, Washington
         
                    16. Lousiville        South Region- Houston, Texas
                                                  First round location: Jacksonville, Florida

It is easy to see why being a top 4 seed from the West coast is a huge advantage.  Utah it the 14th placed team and yet they ended up with one of the probably top 7 sets of locations because there are so few representatives from the West coast that there were plenty of good locations for them.  The worst place to be in this scenario is to be the last #4 seed as Louisville is because there is only one location left for them and again due to the relative poor quality of West coast teams they get the absolute worst travel and have to go to Jacksonville, Florida.  Northern Iowa is in a similar situation in their travel to Seattle to play.

Overall while this was very lengthy and probably confusing at times I hope many of you can now see that the committee does not intentionally screw your teams rather there are only so many quality locations for teams to play in.  If there was more competitive balance across the country having the 2 West coast locations would not be as big of deal, but given the current state of college basketball there are teams who are essentially doomed to play long distances from Campus.  If you have any input feel free to share this blog with other people and leave your comments and questions below.
Here is the the NCAA Principals and Procedures from which I gather a lot of this information.