NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Play-In Game

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The Play-In Game (officially known as the Opening Round) of the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship is the first game of the tournament, played between the two last-seeded (i.e. 64th and 65th) teams. The winner of the game then plays a #1 seed (as a #16 seed) when the first round of the tournament begins. The #1 seed faced by the winner of the play-in game is often, but not always, the highest overall seed in the tournament. To date, no winner of the play-in game has gone on to defeat the #1 seed in the next game. In fact, no #16 seed has beaten a #1 seed at all, even including the ones that didn't have to play in the extra game.

The game was first played in 2001, when the Mountain West Conference, which had split from the Western Athletic Conference in 1999, received an automatic bid for the first time. Under NCAA rules, a new conference must serve a two-year probationary period before receiving an automatic bid to the tournament. Once the Mountain West received its own bid (the WAC retained its bid), the number of teams in the field increased from 64 to 65, requiring one team to be eliminated before the tournament entered its traditional 64-team bracket format. The NCAA Women's Division I Basketball Championship accommodated this change by eliminating an at-large bid, decreasing from 34 to 33, rather than adopting the play-in game.

Although analysts’ initial reactions to the concept were skeptical, the first game, played on March 13, 2001, was a success, and few complaints have been heard since. One reason for these positive comments is the fact that the game is played on a Tuesday night, during which no other games are played (the first round of the tournament starts the following Thursday). Thus, the play-in game assumes a greater prominence than most first-round games, both to the viewing public and to scouts. Recently, Syracuse University coach Jim Boeheim has advocated for an expansion of the tournament from 65 to 76 teams, which would include play in games for all of the 16th and possibly 15th seeded teams. [1] The expansion of play in games faces logistical challenges and lukewarm acceptance from NCAA President Myles Brand and the corporate and media partners of the NCAA.

The play-in game has also been criticized as a handicap for teams among the historically black colleges and universities. In all but one of the games played so far, one of the teams has been a HBCU. The Black Coaches Association has blasted the game as a form of de facto discrimination.

The game is traditionally played at the University of Dayton Arena in Dayton, Ohio; it is not included in CBS coverage of the tournament and therefore is often televised on ESPN (although the 2001 game aired on TNN).

The popular name for the game comes from the fact that the two teams play for the right to get into the field of 64 teams playing in the first round of the tournament.

[edit] Teams

Year	Date	Winner		Loser		#1 Seed Faced
2001	March 13	Northwestern State	71	Winthrop	67	Illinois
2002	March 12	Siena	81	Alcorn State	77	Maryland
2003	March 18	UNC Asheville	92	Texas Southern	84	Texas
2004	March 16	Florida A&M	72	Lehigh	57	Kentucky
2005	March 15	Oakland	79	Alabama A&M	69	North Carolina
2006	March 14	Monmouth	71	Hampton	49	Villanova