That is awesome. I recommend hitting the ESPN Zone over at New York New York at least an hour before tip off.
My wife and I wastched the Final Four there last year it was great. We sat in the recliners right up front and could not have had more fun!! There is a meager $10/HR "cover" but that is not that big a deal. PLUS the sport betting window is right outside the restaurant!!

Holding my nose, I'd say it's the second-most fair way to organize a 68-team tournament. The committee already recognized (however tacitly) that it was relegating two teams each year to second-class citizenship by sending them to Dayton and pretending it was a regular tournament game. For them to take the bottom eight teams in the field and tell them they all had to play way their into the regular 64-team field would have resulted in PR headaches that weren't worth it. So they took a hybrid approach: the bottom four teams overall play pre-lim games, as well as the last four at-larges.

I wish all of the "opening round" games would involve the last eight at-larges, all of whom would be playing for twelve-seeds in the bracket. Why should teams who won their conference tournaments--in other words teams that actually WON their way into the national tournament--have to win another game just so that they can be granted full participation rights?

This has been another episode of "Logistics and PR are tough work when your organization prostitutes itself."

I can almost guarantee that no 16s will be playing any extra games.

IIRC, no 16 has ever beat a 1-seed in the tourney.

The strength of some conferences and their rights to an automatic bid has been a question for many years.

Though I didn't quite realize it earlier, this is an interesting framing problem. Logically, the following two descriptions of the opening round are equally valid:

1) Two 11s and two 12's have to play an extra game while two 16's do not.
and
2) Two 11s and two 12's are allowed to play at least one game in this year's tournament, whereas under the last system those same four teams would have been left out completely.

Each framing involves a value judgment. The first construction assumes that, without exception, lower-seeded teams should have to work harder than higher-seeded teams to win the tournament.

The second assumes that the last four at-large teams should recognize that they have no real chance of actually winning the tournament and look at their opening game as an opportunity rather than an extra burden that most lower-seeded teams don't face.

Wanna bet? :)

Actually, there are 6 #16-seed teams in the tournament. 4 of them will play in 2 different 1st round games, with the winners playing the #1 seeds in their brackets. The final 2 #16-seeds will skip the opening round and play the other 2 #1 seeds first.

So, 2 #16-seed teams are guaranteed to win and advance to the next round.

Really? I don't think I've ever heard anyone seriously propose that the lower-tier conferences shouldn't be guaranteed at least one representative in the tournament.

Link(s)?

So why not just let those last "at-large" teams and the lowest seeded teams all into the tournament, and give the 4 #1 seeds a bye in the first round, and they don't have to play until Saturday or Sunday?

Because the math/bracket doesn't work out that way. If you give the top four teams a bye, then the other sixty-four teams play each other and you're left with thirty-six teams.

I did this last year and had a great time!

We watched at Planet Hollywood, though.

Looking forward to it!

ESPN.com has been blocked by my base's firewall. I bet you it's specifically to prevent folks from filling out brackets considering we still have access to sites like YouTube and Facebook.

Maybe the base commander has stock in CBS, and doesn't have Disney?

I'll bet you're right. Now I'm curious as to whether access is blocked at the local bases.

Same is true for Hill AFB where my son is stationed...he can get on to ESPN on his personal laptop, but not on any of the base computers.