Sports Reference Blog

Our new Stathead Basketball tools for searching our college basketball database feature ways to search for NCAA Tournament games. Due to major changes in the format and round nomenclature over the years, it is tricky to search for exactly what you're looking for using strictly round names. And so we have added some search groupings that will hopefully make all of this a bit more clear.

These groupings are available under the 'Round' dropdown when you choose 'NCAA Tournament' as your game type. They are:

EARLY ROUNDS: These include any games that occurred before the Round of 16. They are essentially the games that occur in the opening week of the modern tournament.

First Four (& Pre-64/48) Round: Any games that occur before the field is trimmed to 64 teams:

• Men's games played prior to the round of 48 in 1983 (4 games) and 1984 (5 games)
• Men's Opening Round games from 2001-10
• Men's First Round games from 2011-15
• Men's First Four games from 2016-present
• Women's First Four games from 2022-present

Round of 64: Any games that occur in rounds in which the field starts with more than 32 teams, but no more than 64:

• Men's First Round games from 1979-2010 and from 2016-present (please note that the men's field expanded to 64 in 1985, but had more than 32 starting in 1979, and this excludes the 9 play-in games from 1983 and 1984)
• Men's Opening Round games from 1983 to 1984
• Men's Second Round games from 2011-15
• Women's First Round games from 1986-present (please note that the women's field expanded to 64 in 1994, but had more than 32 before that)
• Women's Opening Round games in 1983

Round of 32: Any games that occur in rounds in which the field starts with more than 16 teams, but no more than 32:

• Men's First Round games from 1953-78
• Men's Second Round games from 1979-2010 and from 2016-present
• Men's Third Round games from 2011-15
• Women's First Round games from 1982-85
• Women's Second Round games from 1986-present

REGIONAL GAMES: These include Round of 16 and Round of 8 subgroupings, and also Regional Third Place games (which were a part of the Men's tournament from 1939-75).

Round of 16:

• Men's First Round games in 1951
• Men's Regional Semifinals from 1952-present
• Women's Regional Semifinals from 1982-present

Round of 8:

• Men's Regional Semifinals from 1939-51 (this was when there were only 2 regions and thus Regional Semifinals were essentially National Quarterfinals)
• Men's Regional Finals from 1952-Present
• Women's Regional Finals from 1982-Present

FINAL FOUR: These include any games when the field is down to four teams or fewer: National Semifinals, National Finals and National Third-Place Games (which were a part of the Men's tournament from 1946-81).

National Semifinal:

• Men's Regional Finals from 1939-51 (this was when there were only 2 regions and thus Regional Finals were essentially National Semifinals)
• Men's Nationals Semifinals from 1952-Present
• Women's National Semifinals from 1982-Present

National Final:

• All Men's and Women's National Championship Games.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, March 13th, 2024 at 3:40 pm and is filed under CBB at Sports Reference, Stathead. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.