2006 NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Tournament - Tournament Procedure

Tournament Procedure

For more details on this topic, see NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship#Tournament format.

A total of 65 teams were selected to participate in the tournament. 31 of the teams earned automatic bids by winning their conference tournaments. Pennsylvania earned an automatic bid by winning the regular-season title of the Ivy League, which does not conduct a conference tournament. The remaining 34 teams were granted "at-large" bids, which are extended by the NCAA Selection Committee.

The initial game on March 14, popularly called the "play-in game," had Monmouth, winner of the Northeast Conference tournament, facing Hampton, who won the automatic bid from the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference championship, for a chance to play top seed Villanova in the first round of the tournament. Monmouth defeated Hampton, 71–49, to earn that right.

All 64 teams were seeded from 1 to 16 within their regionals; the winner of the play-in game automatically received a 16 seed. The Selection Committee seeded the entire field from 1 to 65. In a practice since 2004, the ranking of the four top seeds against each other would determine the pairings in the Final Four. The top overall seed would be seeded to play the fourth overall seed in the national semifinals, should both teams advance that far. In 2006, these rankings were as follows: No. 1 Duke, No. 2 Connecticut, No. 3 Villanova, and No. 4 Memphis.

The four regionals were officially named after the four host cities, a practice which also began in 2004. However, in 2007, the NCAA returned to naming regionals by their geographic location. The 2006 regionals were:

• March 23 / 25:

Atlanta Regional, Georgia Dome, Atlanta, Georgia (Host: Georgia Institute of Technology)

Oakland Regional, Oakland Arena, Oakland, California (Host: University of San Francisco)

• March 24 / 26:

Minneapolis Regional, Hubert H. Humphrey Metrodome, Minneapolis, Minnesota (Host: University of Minnesota)

Washington, D.C. Regional, Verizon Center, Washington, D.C. (Host: Georgetown University)

The first and second round games were played at the following sites:

• March 16 / 18:

Cox Arena, San Diego, California (Host: San Diego State University)

Greensboro Coliseum, Greensboro, North Carolina (Host: Atlantic Coast Conference)

Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena, Jacksonville, Florida (Host: Jacksonville University)

Jon M. Huntsman Center, Salt Lake City, Utah (Host: University of Utah)

• March 17 / 19:

American Airlines Center, Dallas, Texas (Host: Big 12 Conference)

The Palace of Auburn Hills, Auburn Hills, Michigan (Host: Oakland University)

University of Dayton Arena, Dayton, Ohio (Host: University of Dayton)

Wachovia Center, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania (Host: Atlantic 10 Conference)

Each regional winner advanced to the Final Four, held on April 1 and 3 in Indianapolis, hosted by Butler University and the Horizon League.