Updated: 2/22/2021

A lot of things have been far from normal over the past year and the NCAA basketball tournament is no exception. The NCAA was forced to cancel its largest revenue-generating event last March due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The cancellation resulted in a decrease in revenue of 50% for the organization in 2020, something they are desperately trying to avoid this coming March. The NCAA’s plan consists of sending all 68 tournament teams to the Indianapolis area where all 67 games are currently scheduled to be played. However, the plan has been met with mixed reviews among college coaches. The most outspoken critic has been Hall of Fame Duke coach Mike Krzyzewski who expressed concerns about the logistical challenges of having all 68 teams compete in one location. Although it is likely that his team will miss the NCAA tournament for the first time in over 25 years, Coach K may have a point.

Each team is allowed to travel to Indy with up to 34 people, meaning that up to 2,312 people will be flying/bussing in from all parts of the country to play, pracitce, and live in the same location for up to a month in the middle of a pandemic. Despite stringent safety regulations imposed by the NCAA, having so many people from various different areas in one location means even a few positive cases could cause major disruptions and potentially put the entire tournament in jeopardy.

To ensure the safety of players/coaches and the viability of the tournament, a better appraoch would be to have four different “bubbles” in four different regions of the country with each team in that bubble belonging to that specific geographical region of the country. This approach greatly reduces the number of teams in one location, shortens the travel to the tournament site (its easier to social distance on a bus rather than a plane), and allows for the continuation of the other regions’ games even in the event of positive cases. The champion of each region can then go on to compete in Indianapolis for the Final Four. This plan reduces the number of teams travelling to Indy from 68 down to 4 and also buys time for increased vaccine rollout and decreased case counts.

The following four images show the locations of the projected tournament teams as of 2/8 in their designated region. The star indicates the central location of those tournament teams. Based on these central locations, it was determined that the optimal locations to hold the tournament games would be in Denver, Chicago, Washington D.C., and Atlanta.

East - Washington D.C.

South - Atlanta

Midwest - Chicago

West - Denver