NCAA Tournament selection committee sets minimum game requirement for eligibility

With March Madness swiftly approaching, the NCAA selection committee has announced that to be eligible for the 2022 NCAA Tournament, teams will have to play a minimum of 25 games heading into the postseason, the normal rate prior to the pandemic.

To reach that threshold, teams are allowed to include up to four non-Division I opponents and can also include one conference postseason tournament game, not the whole tournament.

As of this writing, every men’s Division I team has played at least 11 games and all are scheduled to play in at least 25 games (including accounting for one conference tournament matchup). The biggest factor will be avoiding postponements due to health and safety protocols throughout February.

Data provided by Ken Pomeroy recently cancellations due to COVID-19 slowing down in terms of number of COVID pauses and game alterations.

Settling in on a ~5% cancellation rate. pic.twitter.com/ktiBGrHZWd

— Ken Pomeroy (@kenpomeroy) January 21, 2022

Even without 25 games play, there is a loophole the NCAA is allowing to work around that.

“[The committee] decided against a blanket waiver, which would have lowered that minimum number to some other number,” NCAA senior vice president of basketball Dan Gavitt said to CBS Sports. “But there is an individual institution waiver process. So if a team [with a] situation out of its control can’t reach that number of 25 games, there’s a waiver process in place that the committees can review and grant an exception waiver for championship eligibility.”

The waiver window is Feb. 14-Feb. 25, according to Gavitt. Conferences will be able to change their league automatic-qualifier policies as late as Feb. 25, just like last year, in the event any issue with a conference tournament changing the automatic bid to any team. 

“We’re keeping our eye on things and our ear to the ground because we’re not naive enough to think that we’re gonna have to make some decisions or adjustments as necessary, and we’ll take them as they come,” Gavitt said. 

The 2022 NCAA Tournament is slated to begin March 15 and will be returning to it’s regular 68-team format spanning three weeks at 14 sites, starting with the First Four in Dayton for the first time since 2019.

“I’m confident and safe to say we are not in the same situation we were in last year, and thus, the solutions need to be different,” Gavitt said. “What those are will be determined and announced at the appropriate time, but they will not be exactly the same as they were last year.”