2007 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament

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The 2007 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament involved 65 teams playing in a single-elimination tournament to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball as a culmination of the 2006-07 basketball season. Team selections were announced on March 11, 2007, and the tournament began on March 13, 2007, with the Opening round game and concluded with the championship game on April 2 at the Georgia Dome in Atlanta, Georgia.

Both of the finalists from the year before returned to the Final Four as Florida, who returned its entire starting lineup from the year before, and UCLA advanced. They were joined in the Final Four by Ohio State, who was making its first appearance since their 1999 appearance (later vacated), and Georgetown, appearing for the first time since their national runner-up finish in 1985.

Florida defeated Ohio State in the championship 84-75 to win their second consecutive championship. This marked the second time in 2007 that a Florida team beat an Ohio State team to win a national championship, as Florida's football team won the BCS National Championship Game over Ohio State in January. Florida's Corey Brewer was named the Most Outstanding Player. Florida became the first team to repeat since Duke in 1992.

This tournament was significant because it had many fewer upsets than in previous years. There were only 12 games in which a lower-seeded team defeated a higher-seeded team, and eight of these "upsets" were by teams ranked only one seed lower than their opponent. No. 7-seed UNLV was the lowest-seeded team to make it to the Sweet Sixteen. This marked the second time since the tournament expanded to at least 64 teams that no team seeded No. 8 or lower played in the Sweet Sixteen; the other instance was in 1995. Southland Conference champion Texas A&M-Corpus Christi made their first NCAA appearance.

This was the first Tournament since 2003 that regional sites were designated as "East", "West", "South", and "Midwest", rather than by the names of the host cities.

Video 2007 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament

Tournament procedure

A total of 65 teams entered the tournament. Of that total, 30 of the teams earned automatic bids by winning their conference tournaments. The automatic bid of the Ivy League, which did not conduct a post-season tournament, went to its regular season champion, Penn. The remaining 34 teams were granted "at-large" bids, which are extended by the NCAA Selection Committee.

The initial game on March 13 officially named the Opening Round game, but popularly called the "play-in game", had Niagara, winner of the Mid-Atlantic Athletic Conference Tournament, facing Florida A&M, who won the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference Tournament, for a chance to play top seed Kansas in the First Round of the Tournament. Niagara defeated Florida A&M, 77-69, to advance to play Kansas.

All teams are seeded 1 to 16 within their regionals, while the Selection Committee seeded the entire field from 1 to 65.

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 22/24

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

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

March 23/25

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, hosted by Georgia Tech. The semi-final games were held on March 31 and the final on April 2, 2007.

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

March 15/17

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 16/18

United Center, Chicago (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 (Host: Tulane University)

Maps 2007 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament

Qualifying teams

Team names are those listed on the NCAA's scoreboard for the play-in game and first round matchups. Only UCLA, UNLV, and USC (Southern California) use abbreviations; all other names are unabbreviated except for the common abbreviation "A&M".

Here are the top seeded teams in each regional and their overall seeds.

Midwest Regional (St. Louis) (top seed: Florida; top overall seed)
West Regional (San Jose) (top seed: Kansas; fourth overall seed)
East Regional (East Rutherford) (top seed: North Carolina; second overall seed)
South Regional (San Antonio) (top seed: Ohio State; third overall seed)