Nantz, Kellogg, and Kerr Will Call the "First Four" and the "Final Four"

TNT will also bring their NBA studio talent (Ernie Johnson, Sir Charles, Kenny Smith and Greg Anthony) to the table, as the CBS/TNT combo will run two studios. Marv Alpert will return to NCAA tournament coverage for the first time since any of you can remember, as he will team with Kerr during the regional finals while Nantz and Kellogg are at a different site.

Back in July, the NCAA established the format for these “First Four” games after expanding the tournament field to 68. Some people wanted them to make at-large entries play in these games; others wanted the last eight automatic qualifiers to face off in a #16 vs. #17 matchup. The NCAA split the baby. Two of the games will feature teams that would be the equivalent of 16 seeds, and similar to the recent play-in games, playing to advance to play a #1 seed. Two other games will feature the last four at-larges selected by the committee, and the winners of those two games will be pre-slotted into a region (likely a #11 or #12 seed).

Purely from a competitive equality standpoint, I would have seeded the 68 teams as a group based on their profiles. We have at-larges seeded ahead of automatic qualifiers all the time, and if they determined they wanted 68, I would have seeded them straight up. This would have set up a situation that gave no advantage to any #1 seed (all would be playing teams that played in a 16/17 game). Now, some #5 or#6 seed may get a team that just played multiple games in a conference tourney then had to play two days earlier. I don’t know if it will provide an advantage, but we will see within the next decade.

I know there was some political pressure from smaller conferences fearing their teams would be seeded lower. Of course, some of the “First Four” participants are going to be mid-majors who will now get in as at-larges with a 68 team field, like Utah State last year. I would think that a team like Utah State would have a better chance to make some noise rather than a 15-seed type that would now become a 16 seed.

Let’s be honest, though, the biggest issue is our office pools. If they had seeded the 68 teams and put the worst auto qualifiers in the opening round, we could have just penciled in the #1 seeds in the first round, and moved on. (But the ratings on truTV would have been worse). Now, pool managers will have to decide whether they want to award points for the opening round games, or just allow people to pick the winner of one of those First Four games to advance, without designating the specific teams. With so many pools being filled out on Tuesday and Wednesday, I suspect most will ignore the “First Four.”

[photo via Getty]