Posted by Scott HW on March 12, 2001 at 19:48:25:
Here's a good article....
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New opening-round game kicks off Tournament
By Joe Donatelli
Scripps Howard News Service
The Big Ten has 11 teams. So does the Atlantic 10. So maybe it only makes sense that this year's 64-school NCAA Tournament features 65 teams.
For the first time since 1991 The Tournament will hold its new "opening-round" game. The two lowest-rated teams -- Northwestern State and Winthrop -- meet Tuesday at the University of Dayton Arena, site of the first-round Midwest regional.
And for one night, two schools that basketball fans know little about become the center of the college hoops universe.
Fame, fortune and even a little history are on the line. Northwestern State (Natchitoches, La.) has never played an NCAA Tournament game. Winthrop (Rock Hill, S.C.), meanwhile, is still looking for its first Tournament win.
The winner plays Midwest No. 1-seed Illinois. A 16-seed has yet to beat a 1-seed in Tournament play.
Why does the field have 65 teams this year? When the Western Athletic Conference broke up and the Mountain West was created, the number of leagues receiving automatic bids rose to 31. The Tournament could either reduce the number of at-large bids to 33 or add one team to the field.
The last time The Tournament offered a play-in game was 1991 when teams from the conferences ranked in the bottom six of the Ratings Percentage Index played for three spots. St. Francis (Pa.), Coastal Carolina and Northeast Louisiana all made The Tournament, but lost in the first round.
Mike Tranghese, NCAA Division I Men's Basketball committee chair and commissioner of the Big East Conference, said that the new opening-round game will be part of The Tournament for the foreseeable future.
"I think if we're sitting here with the same number of conferences, the same structure five years from now I believe we'll be facing the same exact situation," Tranghese said.
The game will be broadcast on TNN.