March Madness: An Additional Role For The Number One Seed: Home Field Advantage?
On Monday it was announced that starting this upcoming season, the number one seed in the NCAA Tournament will have a unique opportunity at home field advantage during March Madness, well sort of.
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According to Sports Illustrated, starting with the 2016-17 Season the Number One Overall Seed will have the chance to pick the site of their first and second round games, from the options available of course. It will add another bit of intrigue to March Madness. If this plan were in effect for this last season, the Oregon Ducks ‘could’ have played their first two games in Portland close to home rather than several hours North in Spokane, Washington.
The move should also help boost interest in the game. The sites to choose from for the upcoming season have already been decided for the NCAA Tournament and include Orlando, Buffalo, Salt Lake City, Indianapolis, Tulsa, Greensboro and Sacramento. If Oregon lands the top seed once again after returning the bulk of scoring from the 2015-16 season, Utah and California seem to be the viable options.
Of course, a waiver to play at Matthew Knight Arena would be awesome for the NCAA Tournament. It would really be March Madness, but unfortunately the system doesn’t work that way.
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We do know that Oregon will face UNLV on December 17th in Portland. The remainder of the 2016-17 Schedule has not yet been released.