Western Courier

Issue date: 7/10/03 Section: Sports

MILWAUKEE (KRT) - As soon as next season, a system could be in place that guarantees the top two teams in the NCAA men's basketball tournament would play each other only in the national championship game.

The selection committee has recommended to the NCAA that it rank the tournament's four No. 1-seeded teams, thus eliminating the scheduling rotation that paired regional winners in the past.

The plan will be considered by the NCAA in September. If passed, the committee would place the regionals featuring the top two teams on opposite sides of the bracket, although it probably wouldn't go so far as to announce the pecking order of the No. 1-seeded teams.

"I think fans of the game will probably be able to figure it out," said Bill Hancock, a consultant to the Division I men's basketball championship and a former director of the NCAA tournament. "In a lot of years it will be obvious."

If every No. 1 reaches the Final Four, the top-seeded No. 1 would play the fourth in one national semifinal and the second- and third-seeded No. 1s would play in the other.

The recommendation comes on the heels of the 2003 tournament, in which Kentucky and Arizona, considered the top two teams in the seedings, were placed in regions that would have led to a matchup in the national semifinals. Neither team made it to the Final Four, but until they were knocked out in the regional finals - Kentucky at the hands of Marquette University - the potential pairing was a lightening rod for criticism of the selection committee.

In another recommendation, the committee voted unanimously to eliminate the directional designations for the regionals. The goal is to eliminate some of the confusion that resulted from the pod system, which attempts to place highly seeded teams at sites closer to home during the first and second rounds regardless of their regional designations.

Instead, regionals will be named after the host city.

That's a minor change. The seeding of the No. 1 teams would represent a change in philosophy in the committee's thinking, Hancock said.

Continued...

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