SAN DIEGO — It’s the most wonderful time of the year! March Madness is set to begin next week, and our San Diego State Aztecs men's basketball team will be there!! The Selection Committee released rankings and have the Aztecs as a 5 seed in the South Region! They will take on the Charleston Cougars in the opening round.
This is the fifth time in the last eight years the Aztecs are going dancing. That being said, they haven’t had a win in the March Madness tournament since knocking off St. John’s in 2015.
During their last three tourney selections the team have lost their first game. In 2018 they lost to Houston, in 2021 they dropped the game against Syracuse and last year they lost an OT heartbreaker against Creighton.
However, this a completely different team and past outcomes are never indicative of future success. Let’s go Aztecs!
The March Madness bracket is quite the challenge to create. Ten men and women, a mix of athletic directors and conference commissioners are the one’s that put it all together. According to Sports Illustrated the committee choose who will participate in the tournament before they assigned seeds.
Of the 68 teams that participate, 32 teams will have won their conference tournament and receive an automatic bid. That means 36 receive at-large berths meaning they did not win their conference tournament and need to be selected by the committee to participate.
The tournaments used to feature 64 teams, but recently the tournament has began holding “First 4 teams.” According to the NCAA, the four lowest-seeded automatic qualifiers, and the four lowest-seeded at-large teams play for a chance to play in the round of 64. Each subset plays against itself meaning at-large teams face at-large teams, and automatic qualifiers face automatic qualifiers.
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