NCAA makes changes to tournament seeding process

The NCAA Tournament selection committee has been given more flexibility to create the best matchups for the first weekend of the event.

In a minor tweak to the seeding rules for the tournament, the NCAA announced Monday that the selection committee will be allowed to place the final four at-large teams according to overall seeding.

Since the First Four round was institued in 2011, the final four teams voted into the tournament had been locked into the opening round. They always had played the bottom four conference tournament winners.

Now, the last four at-large teams in the committee's overall seeding will play in the First Four.

"It's a small, yet significant, alteration to the language outlining our seeding process," said Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione, chairman of the men's basketball committee. "Making this change gives the committee the opportunity to properly seed every team."

The NCAA also will allow the committee to move the fifth overall seed out of its natural geographic area to avoid meeting the top overall seed.

The committee also tweaked procedures to avoid nepotism by committee members who have family members on teams or in athletic departments of teams being considered for the tournament.