2007 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 entered the tournament. Thirty of the teams earned automatic bids by winning their conference tournaments. The automatic bid of the Ivy League, which does not conduct a post-season tournament, went to its regular season champion. The remaining 34 teams were granted "at-large" bids, which are extended by the NCAA Selection Committee. All teams are seeded 1 to 16 within their regionals, while the Selection Committee seeded the entire field from 1 to 65.

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

March 15 and 17

HSBC Arena, Buffalo, New York (Hosts: Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference, Canisius College and Niagara University)

ARCO Arena, Sacramento, California (Host: University of the Pacific)

Rupp Arena, Lexington, Kentucky (Host: University of Kentucky)

Lawrence Joel Veterans Memorial Coliseum, Winston-Salem, North Carolina (Host: Wake Forest University)

March 16 and 18

United Center, Chicago, Illinois (Host: Big Ten Conference)

Nationwide Arena, Columbus, Ohio (Host: Ohio State University)

Spokane Veterans Memorial Arena, Spokane, Washington (Host: Washington State University)

New Orleans Arena, New Orleans, Louisiana (Host: Tulane University)

The NCAA had also resumed naming the regionals after geographic directions. Regionals were named after their host cities from 2004 to 2006. The regional final sites were:

March 22 and 24

South Regional, Alamodome, San Antonio, Texas (Host: University of Texas at San Antonio)

West Regional, HP Pavilion, San José, California (Host: San José State University)

March 23 and 25

East Regional, Continental Airlines Arena, East Rutherford, New Jersey (Host: Rutgers University)

Midwest Regional, Edward Jones Dome, St. Louis, Missouri (Host: Missouri Valley Conference)

Each regional winner advanced to the Final Four at the Georgia Dome, Atlanta, Georgia, hosted by Georgia Tech. The semi-final games were held on March 31 and the final on April 2, 2007.