The Geography of the NCAA Tournament:
Here are this year's first/second round sites with the two "pod leaders" hosted at each site:
Brooklyn:
Charlotte:
Pittsburgh:
Indianapolis:
Memphis:
Omaha:
Salt Lake City:
Spokane:
Note that there is one site in the Mountain Time Zone (SLC) and one in the Pacific Time Zone (Spokane) but there is only one top-4 seed from those two time zones (Arizona) so three #4 seeds from the Eastern and Central Time Zones have to get shipped out west where they will likely be at a geographic disadvantage if they are lucky enough to make the second round:
- #4 Kansas is likely to face #5 Gonzaga in the second round - in Salt Lake City
- #4 Bama is likely to face #5 St. Mary's in the second round - in Spokane
- #4 Auburn is likely to face #5 SDSU in the second round - in Spokane
This isn't some random thing that just happened to occur this year because there were more teams from the Eastern and Central time zones than usual. Nope, it is ALWAYS this way. The NCAA has to know better and yet EVERY year they intentionally disadvantage a few teams from the Eastern and Central time zones and give an unfair and unearned advantage to a few teams from the Mountain and Pacific time zones.
Specifically, over the last 20 tournaments (2004-2019 and 2020-2024) here is the number of top-4 seeds from each time zone:
- 8.65 average Eastern, range of 6-11
- 5.20 average Central, range of 2-9
- 0.60 average Mountain, range of 0-1
- 1.55 average Pacific, range of 0-3
Combining EST/CST and MST/PST we get:
- 13.85 average Eastern and Central, range of 12-16
- 2.15 average Mountain and Pacific, range of 0-4
Based on this, there *SHOULD* be seven first/second round sites each year in the Eastern and Central time zones and one in the Mountain and Pacific time zones.
Can anyone explain to me why the NCAA chooses to do this? It simply can't be accidental. They obviously know what teams have been selected each year and they know that nearly every year a few eastern #4 seeds get shipped west to fill in unneeded western sites. Why do they choose not to fix it?
Someone has to be the late game on Thursday and Friday, and it's a lot more palatable to start the late game at 8PM local than 10 PM local.
Some of this is because the number of willing host sites in the Mountain and Pacific time zones is grossly out of proportion with the number of schools in Division 1 in those time zones. When was the last time anyone went to Spokane, Boise, or Albuquerque on their own impetus?
And if you think this was bad, recall that prior to the pod system, A) 1st/2nd round locations were fixed by region, and B) the eighth of the bracket that are attached to each 1 and 2 seed went with them no matter who the 3 and 4 seeds were. This year, the sites would have looked like this:
East: Brooklyn (UConn) and Pittsburgh (Iowa State)
South: Memphis (Houston) and Charlotte (Marquette)
Midwest: Indy (Purdue) and Omaha (Tennessee)
West: Salt Lake (North Carolina) and Spokane (Arizona)
The top two seeds look okay save UNC, but after that it gets really messy really fast. Recall that the last year pre-pod, Georgetown, George Mason, and Maryland were all shipped to Boise for first-round action.
