<P> Once the S - curve is established the committee must place the teams throughout the four regions . They were originally referred to as East, Mideast, Midwest, and West . In 1985, the Mideast designation became the Southeast, and later the South Regional in 1998 . The women's tournament continued to use the Mideast terminology through 2004 . In 2004, the NCAA started to identify the men's regions only by the city in which the regional semifinals and finals were played, with the same change being made for the women's tournament in 2005 . The NCAA reverted to the East / South / Midwest / West designations for the men's tournament starting in 2007, but continues to designate women's regionals by their cities . Typically the cities selected will be spread throughout the country and conform roughly to the old geographic distinctions . While the regions are named for certain cities, the first and second round games are played in different cities which need not be anywhere near the regional finals . In 2005 the Austin, Texas men's regional was fed by games in Indianapolis, Indiana; Tucson, Arizona; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Worcester, Massachusetts . This is due to the "pod" system enacted before the 2002 tournament to minimize travel for as many teams as possible, especially in the early rounds . Any team may be sent to any region and any pod, although the tournament does try to keep teams, especially the top - seeded teams, closer to home . However, in 2004, Pittsburgh played its first two tournament games in Milwaukee and not in Buffalo or Columbus, cities to which it was closer . This was done to keep a lower - seeded team, the Wisconsin Badgers, close to its campus . Similarly, two east - coast teams, Maryland and Syracuse, traveled to Denver, where their opening round opponents were BYU and UTEP, both of which were geographically closer to Denver . In addition, in 2009, Kansas and West Virginia, the two higher seeds, traveled to Minneapolis to play their opponents North Dakota State and Dayton, although Dayton and North Dakota State are geographically closer to Minneapolis than Kansas and West Virginia . To make matters worse for both latter teams, Kansas City (Kansas) and Greensboro NC (West Virginia) were both 1st - 2nd round sites that year . </P> <P> A number of complex rules govern the seeding process, so it is not as simple as merely following the S - curve, although that is the top priority according to the NCAA's rules . The better a team is, the more priority they have in remaining close to home, but no hosting institution's team can actually play at the location where the institution is hosting tournament games (generally, games are hosted on neutral courts, so this is not usually a problem). Sometimes a top team may be a short drive away from its games; in 2006 Villanova played its first and second round games in Philadelphia at an arena where they had played three games that year, one fewer than the four required for a site to be considered a "home court" for a team, and in 2002 the Pitt Panthers played their first and second round games in the city of Pittsburgh at Mellon Arena (which was not their home court after the opening of their on - campus arena). In the women's tournament, this criterion does not apply and a team that is hosting is automatically assigned its home arena, regardless of seed . Thus, occasionally, lower seeded teams will host a game . For example, in 2006 Old Dominion, although a 10th seed, played at its home court in the first round and also would have played there in the second round had the Lady Monarchs won that game . One major controversy during the 2014 that erupted was #1 seed South Carolina being forced to make two cross-country trips for the tournament, with many charging the Gamecocks were punished as a result of a home game ban by being forced to travel to Seattle for the first two rounds in a regional Washington was hosting, and Palo Alto where they were eliminated in the third round in the Stanford regional . The following year, the NCAA allowed South Carolina to host its first two games, determining that since sites for the opening two rounds were (at least theoretically) determined on merit, those games were not covered by the NCAA's ban on holding its own championship events in that state (which has since been lifted). </P> <P> Teams are spread out according to conference . The first three teams selected from each conference must be placed in different regions (with a slight exception in 2014, when 11th seed play - in team Tennessee was placed in the Midwest Region with conference foe 8th seed Kentucky). When a conference has more than three teams in the tournament, the committee tries to seed the teams so that they cannot meet until the regional final . Before 2006, this was an absolute rule . However, in the summer of 2005, the NCAA changed its rules to allow intraconference matchups as early as the second round of the tournament, assuming all measures to keep the teams apart until the regional finals have been exhausted . The NCAA was clearly preparing for the chance that a conference would place more than eight teams in the tournament, which became a realistic possibility when the Big East, already a power conference, expanded to 16 members, with several of the new members having traditionally strong programs . The Big East placed a record eleven teams in the 2011 Tournament, and nine teams in the 2012 Tournament . Although the Big East split into two leagues in 2013, the issue of conferences placing more than eight teams in the tournament remained, due to several other leagues expanding in the early 2010s (notably the ACC to 15, and the Big Ten and SEC to 14 each). </P> <P> The committee may move a team up or down one seed from its seed line in the S - curve in order to preserve other principles . While this may be seen as unfair in some instances, the seeding process is an inexact science anyway and a slight move in seeding is unlikely to affect the chances of any team . </P>

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