NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Play-In Game

The Opening Round game (commonly known as the Play-In Game) of the NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Championship was the first official game of the tournament, played between two of the lowest-seeded teams to qualify for an automatic bid to the tournament. Beginning in 2001, the game was typically played on the Tuesday following the Sunday selection of the other teams for the March tournament and was played at University of Dayton Arena in Dayton, Ohio. The winner of the game was awarded the No. 16 seeded position in one of four regions of the tournament and next played the No. 1 seeded team of that region on the following Friday. No winner of that game, nor any other No. 16 seed, has upset the No. 1 seeded team. However, three of the top seeds to beat the opening game winner advanced to the national championship game and all three won the national championship (2002 Maryland, 2005 North Carolina and 2010 Duke). North Carolina was the only No. 1 seeded team matched against the opening round winner more than once (2005 & 2008). On April 22, 2010, the NCAA announced that the tournament would expand to 68 teams, with four "Play-In Games" beginning with the 2011 tournament.

The game was conceived after the Mountain West Conference, which had been formed in 1999 following the split of the Western Athletic Conference, was given an automatic bid for its conference champion, which made it the 31st conference to receive an automatic berth into the men's tournament. Unlike the women's tournament, which accommodated this change by eliminating an at-large bid to keep their field at 64 teams, the organizers of the men's tournament elected to keep their at-large entries at 34. In order to eliminate one of the teams to have a 64-team bracket, it became necessary for another game to be played between the two lowest-ranked teams among the automatic bid leagues.

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