> To answer John Hughes' question regarding why the NCAA hockey > tournament only has 12 teams... > > It has to do with the NCAA wanting to keep its national tournaments > to a particular ratio, i.e., number of teams in the tournament vs. > number of teams competting in that sport. If I remember correctly, > the NCAA's desired ratio is considerably higher for basketball than > it is for hockey, which happens to be approximately 1 in every four > teams. Actually, I thought that at 12 teams, hockey had a smaller percentage than basketball. I think hockey is at 25%, and basketball is at 28%. If The hockey tournament went to 16 teams (33%), it would have a HIGHER percentage than basketball, and the NC$$ claims that that would "water down" the tournament too much, and besides hockey should be happy they let them expand to 12 teams just a couple of years ago B^).