Bracketering: An interesting procedure

Once teams are placed on a seed line, they then have to be bracketed into pods for tournament action.  We will take you through this procedure as we know it.  It is a very interesting procedure.  The NCAA attempts to have teams play as close to home as possible while also balancing out the four regions of the bracket.

The bracketing begins with placing the top 16 teams in pods closest to home in order of their overall seed.  Here is how this goes

Above chart does not represent our latest seeds— following discussion does— just an example above

Gonzaga would get to select their location.  Without knowing their preference we placed them in Salt Lake City closest to campus.  Duke would get the next chance then Virginia and finally Kentucky.  We actually use a website to determine flight miles.  This process continues until all 16 protected seeds are placed.  As the bracketing gets to the 3 and 4 seed lines the choices available seem to be slim.  At the time of this picture we had Maryland as the last 4 seed ( dropped them since Penn St loss) and they had to go to Salt Lake City.

The next item is to place these 16 teams in each of the four regions: East, Midwest, South and West.  Again the committee starts with the top seed and moves down to 16.  They will attempt to follow an S curve but it rarely works out that way.  
Gonzaga-  West
Duke-   East
Virginia— South
Kentucy– Midwest.

2 seeds
North Carolina is Next—  They are not allowed to be in Duke or Virginia’s region by rule.  North Carolina goes closest to home and will be placed in the Mid west. 
Michigan St would go to the East,
Tennessee to the South
MIchigan out west.

3 seeds- 
Houston goes West, 
LSU to east— cant go South due to Tennesee placed there and cant go to Midwest because Kentucky is placed there.  Purdue cannot go East or West so they would go to Midwest
Marquette is left for the South.

4 seeds- 
Kansas to the Midwest— Des Moines is possible but may be competitive advantage for a 4
Texas Tech to East
Virginia Tech-  to west– to avoid other ACC teams
Wisconsin to South

West:  Gonzaga, Michigan, Houston, Virginia Tech
Midwest: Kentucky, North Carolina, Purdue, Kansas
South:  Virginia, Tennessee, Marquette, Wisconsin
East:  Duke, Michigan State, LSU, Texas Tech