Article:Brackets

Men's basketball teams that get hot at the end of the season now have a bit more of a chance to impress the NCAA tournament selection committee. With Selection Sunday 32 days away and teams trying to play their way into consideration for one of 34 at-large berths, committee chairman Tom O'Connor said Tuesday that his group will look closely at how a club does in its last 12 games as one criterion. Previously, committee members looked at how a team did during its final 10 games to help gauge how it might be playing at the end of the season. As schedules consistently expand with the proliferation of "exempt" tournaments early in the season, O'Connor said looking at the final dozen games offers a better representation. "We just felt that that was a clearer picture of what was happening," said O'Connor, also athletics director at George Mason. That could be good for teams such as Davidson, which lost six of its first 10, including losses to North Carolina, Duke and UCLA, but has won 13 in a row. O'Connor also said in an effort to have more time in the selection and bracketing process, committee members will gather in Indianapolis a day earlier. "What we plan to do is to come on Tuesday night … and then hit the ground running on Wednesday," he said. "We're also going to speed up the process by having our initial ballots in a little bit earlier. We can have more discussion on the selection.   "The second point is, quite frankly, we've been a little bit rushed in bracketing, and we really would like to spend a little bit more time on bracketing. We need to synthesize all the information and have a good, solid discussion. So if we can pick up a day here, an hour there, a half-hour there, it's only going to make for a better final product." There is no current discussion, O'Connor said, about expanding the 65-team field. "At this time, the committee and the NCAA board has deemed that the current bracket is appropriate," he said.