Post by pk9 on Mar 28, 2017 21:50:24 GMT
1. Currently, #2 plays #15 and #7 plays #10 on the same day at the same arena. The winner of the 7/10 game knows that in 2 days they'll play at that same arena against the winner of the 2/15 game. Reseeding means that the winner of the 7/10 game may have to play #3 or #4 or some other seed. But #3, #4, and all other seeds are at some other location. So the winner of the 7/10 game may have to travel to another location for their 2nd-round game.
2. Currently, the 1st round is divided into 2 days. 16 games on Thursday and 16 games on Friday. At the end of Thursday's games, each of the 16 Thursday winners knows that they'll be playing on Saturday at the same arena and knows who they'll be playing. Reseeding means that some teams might not know who or where they'll play their 2nd-round game until the end of Friday's games. So some teams may have to get on a plane on Friday night and travel to another location to play a Saturday morning game.
Not only would the teams have to travel, but any parents, alumni, and fans of the team that went to the game would also have to make last-minute travel and hotel arrangements for the 2nd-round game. Also, if a team played on Thursday and they're reseeded to play a team that played on Friday, does the game get played on Saturday or Sunday?
There is a practical way to do this that has very little effect on the travel:
Prior to the institution of the pod system in 2002, each region was divided into 2 sites for the opening games. All 8 teams from each site would end up in the same half of the bracket for the regional, so basically 1-4-5-8-9-12-13-16 are assigned to one site and 2-3-6-7-10-11-14-15 are assigned to the other site. If you go back to that setup, the 8 teams at one site all play on the same day. You can then re-seed the 4 winners for the two second round games. No one has to get on a plane to change arenas. Fans who bought tickets for both days would already have tickets to the weekend doubleheader.
If people get confused about the numbering, you can just number each subregional 1-8. Two teams advance out of each one to play in the regional on the second weekend (regions are locked), where they get re-seeded again based on their overall 1-68 ranking.
The only drawback is that this system might increase the travel for current 3 and 4 seeds which normally get to "host" a minibracket. (UCLA for example would have had to play the first weekend in Indianapolis instead of Sacramento). But there's a total of eight teams out of 68 that it affects. And you can say it's a reward for the 1 and 2 seeds to get the closest games.