Lovers of the outdoors flock to the Boise area year-round. As welcoming as the area is, the eight teams that flew to Idaho to play in the first round of the Division I Men's Basketball Championship last March would have preferred homier environs -- provided, of course, that they could still be in the tournament.

Four of those teams -- Maryland, Georgetown, George Mason and Hampton -- stuck out of the Boise bracket like the Washington Monument would if planted in one of Idaho's national forests. Of the eight teams assigned to Boise, Iowa State made the "shortest" trip -- 1,478 miles.

Of course, the four first-round games in that bracket arguably were the most competitive games ever played at one tournament site. A cumulative six points separated the winners and losers. Nonetheless, concerns about distance prompted the Division I Men's Basketball Committee to take steps to lessen the likelihood that so many teams would have to travel so far again.

Changes will make it easier for fans to travel to see their team in person, which would have pleased Jim Larranaga, coach of George Mason last year. His Fairfax, Virginia-based squad nearly upset Final Four-bound Maryland in the first round in Boise in front of a bunch of friendly strangers.

"Looking back, it was such a wonderful experience and we were treated so well that it was ultimately very good," Larranaga said. "I have nothing but positive things to say about Boise, but how much better would the experience have been for these teams had they been somewhere within driving distance so they would have someone to share the experience with?"

Hampton, a No. 15 seed that upset second-seeded Iowa State in Boise, had a similar experience. "About 12" fans followed the Pirates to Idaho, according to coach Steve Merfeld.

How did those East Coast teams end up playing in the West region last year? First, know that "West," and all the other regional designations refer to location of venue, not to the teams involved.

The specific answer is a bit more complicated because of the multi-faceted bracketing principles that guide the committee when it places the 65 chosen teams. Foremost among those principles is to construct a balanced bracket, where the cumulative strength of each region must be as close to equal as possible. Also, to maximize fairness of the actual games, the committee can't allow a team to play before anything that resembles a home crowd when facing a higher-seeded team. Consult the Division I Men's Basketball Championship Handbook or www.ncaa.org for the complete list of the principles and procedures, which have been honed by committee members through the years.

In 2001 and previous years, the principles addressing geography were secondary to others. Beginning this season, a new seeding principle and the relaxation of other rules will allow the committee to keep more teams closer to home, a change that seems to benefit virtually everyone.

Lee Fowler, director of athletics at North Carolina State University and current chair of the committee, said that more teams traveled out of region during the 2001 tournament than in previous years, and after the committee talked about it during the 2001 tournament and over the ensuing few months, members developed another bracketing principle by which to place the teams.

"Student-athletes' parents and other fans were saying, 'we love the tournament but we can't afford to follow our team,' " Fowler said. "Now, the principles require the committee to consider an institution's location in relation to the first- and second-round site. Of course, the committee still must meet all other principles, including the primary one: balancing the bracket. But this should reduce miles traveled for many teams and for the moms, dads, and other relatives and fans associated with those teams."

Geography as a principle

Constructing the tournament bracket is actually a three-step process: The committee selects the teams, ranks them from 1 through 65, then places them in one of the four regions, beginning with the top four teams in each region.

"The committee doesn't go any further with the bracket until it's satisfied that the cumulative strength of the top four teams in one region is as equal as possible to the cumulative strength of the teams other three regions," Fowler said.

In the "old" bracketing process, once teams were seeded in a particular region, they played their first- and second-round games at a site in that region. For example, Maryland, the third seed in the West last year, traveled west to play its first- and second-round games, then proceeded to the West Regional in Anaheim, California.

Under the new process, the teams will be assigned to the four competitively balanced regions, as in the past. The new twist is that a team can play its first-/second-round games at any of the eight sites. The first-/second-round sites will no longer be designated as being associated with any particular region.

During selection weekend, after the committee places the top four seeds in each region, it will assign each of them to one of the eight first-/second-round sites, keeping them as close to home as possible. The committee will then assign the remaining teams to regions and first-/second-round sites, guided by the bracketing principles and geography.

'Free agents'

The committee is using the term "pods" to describe the four-team groups that will be together at each first-/second-round site.

"In reality, the 'pods' concept is not new," Fowler said. "There have always been 'pods' of four teams. Those four teams played a mini-tournament at a first- and second-round site. The winners advanced to the regionals. That's all still the same. The difference is that the committee will have the flexibility to assign a West region pod to Washington, D.C., for instance."

With this change, the first-/second-round sites will not carry region labels. Each site will host two four-team pods that could be in any region. Sacramento, California, for example, will not be designated as a "West Region First-/Second-Round site." Instead, it will simply be listed as one of the eight first-/second-round sites.

Boise, for instance, if it were a site this season, would host two four-team pods; the two teams that win two games there could each advance to a different regional. Last year, if a team was placed in the West region, it had to go to a West region first-/second-round site. This year, all sites are open to any team.

If last year's tournament field were picked under this season's principles, Maryland might have played George Mason on Long Island instead of in Boise. Had they won, the Terps would have traveled to Anaheim for the regional.

"The same principle will be applied, as much as possible, for teams one through 65, not just the top 16 teams," Fowler said.

For example, using this season's new principle and last year's field, Stanford, the committee's top seed, would earn the top seed in the West region and could play its first-/second-round games in San Diego.

Duke, the committee's second seed, would earn the top seed in the East and could play its first-/second-round games in Greensboro, North Carolina; and Illinois, the committee's third seed, would earn the top seed in the Midwest and could play its first-/second-round games in Dayton, Ohio. Michigan State, the overall fourth seed, would be assigned the top seed in the South, but could play its first-/second-round games in Dayton -- much closer to East Lansing, Michigan, than Memphis, where the Spartans played in the first/second rounds in 2001.

"Granted," said Fowler, "two No. 1 seeds could play at the same first-/second-round site, reducing the number of sites that play host to top seeds. That could not have happened before.

"The committee doesn't believe that scenario would reduce interest in the tournament at sites without top seeds because, with the new emphasis on geography, every site should have 'local' teams that the fans want to see. The committee believes that the fans at the sites don't care as much about seed numbers as they care about seeing teams they are familiar with."

An advantage for Goliath?

Any change in the tournament bracketing process is generally greeted with the same type of suspicion that a man wearing a Halloween costume in a bank lobby would get, so high are the stakes. So a critic's first reaction to the theoretical field noted above might be to point to Duke, playing in Greensboro, and ask, "Why not let them play at Cameron Indoor Stadium? Doesn't a top seed already have enough of an advantage without playing so close to home?"

Hampton's Merfeld, who engineered one of the biggest upsets in tournament history, doesn't think upsets will diminish with the change.

"Those kinds of games are rare and I don't think geography is going to make much of a difference (in how often they occur)," he said. "It's more a case of a 15 seed having good match-ups with a No. 2 seed -- or a No. 2 seed coming out flat -- than it has to do with geography."

Larranaga's attitude is more wait-and-see.

"I think geography is certainly worth consideration and continued research and refinement," he said. "So many unexpected things happen in this tournament that you never know if something like this is going to create more problems than it solves.

"When the tournament begins, the one thing that's certain is that there are going to be upsets and unexpected things. That's what is so great about it. I wouldn't want to see that lessened by having teams playing more games close to home. If neither team has a distinct advantage, then this is a good thing; but if we see teams have a great advantage over another because they are so close to home, that's not good."

In addition to increasing the likelihood that a No. 1 seed will be close to home, the new principle, applied to last year's field, also would present a good chance of landing UNC Greensboro in Greensboro (which would not violate any of the home-court provisions because UNC Greensboro would have played Duke). Fans of both teams could see their teams in person without spending hundreds, or thousands, for flights and hotel rooms.

"Every team, top to bottom, will have a better chance to play closer to home," Fowler said. "That will make some of those early round match-ups more attractive to local fans, and it will make it easier for fans to see their favorite teams."

Critics might speculate that such a change is purely a monetary decision, but Fowler said such criticism is not valid. "Last year, all but three non-domed sites drew at least 89 percent capacity," he said. "More than anything, the change simply made sense for the fans and the teams."

One of the first-/second-round sites that was far from full last year was Kansas City, Missouri. The Big 12 Conference, which was the host, sold 14,000 of its 18,000 tickets in advance. According to Associate Commissioner Tim Allen, the conference expected to sell the rest after the selections were announced.

"There's no question that if we had a local team (Iowa State or Kansas would have been prime candidates), we would have sold out or come close," Allen said.

Instead, Eastern Illinois, nearly 400 miles away, was the closest team and most of those remaining tickets went unsold.

"We knew we had our promotional work cut out for us (once we saw the field)," Allen said. "While as a host you're always enthusiastic and focus on creating the best possible experience for the student-athletes and their fans, you know that if you had more local flavor, it would be a better weekend for everyone.

"Having local teams helps bring the atmosphere up a notch for the players, the fans and even the people watching on television."

Merfeld said the only negative he saw with putting more of an emphasis on geography was that other teams might miss the special opportunity his team had last season.

"We knew no one there, yet because we were the lower seed, everyone kind of adopted us," he said. "If the teams are all from the same geographical area, that's not going to happen as much."

Although the geographical principle was set before September 11, it addresses some new concerns about reducing air travel. With that reduction, travel costs will decrease. But as with any process that involves so many different factors, this new principle will not please all 65 teams. Building a balanced bracket remains paramount, and geographical concerns are still only secondary. That means that some teams, probably just not as many, will have to travel great distances.

"The mandate of a balanced bracket, and the fact that there are many more schools east of the Mississippi than west makes it impossible to eliminate long trips for everyone," Fowler said. "But, in the models the committee studied this summer, the new system greatly reduced travel and that seems to benefit many more than it hurts."