4 Reasons NCAA Tournament could affect the Utah Jazz beyond the obvious
By Chad Porto
The City of Salt Lake will host the games
The NCAA basketball tournaments have taken the WrestleMania II model and made it work. There are 68 teams, and that means there are over 30 games alone in the first round. Considering the first round takes place over two days, you're going to need to find a way to fit all those games into the tournament and since you can't just rely on one arena or even one state alone to carry all those matchups, you gotta do multiple locations.
Luckily for the Jazz faithful, the NCAA opted to come to Salt Lake City this season and will feature four first-round games, and two second-round games. The four first-round games are as follows;
- No. 15 Long Beach State (21-14) vs. No. 2 Arizona (25-8)
- No. 10 Nevada (26-7) vs. No. 7 Dayton (24-7)
- No. 13 Samford (29-5) vs. No. 4 Kansas (22-10)
- No. 12 McNeese (30-3) vs. No. 5 Gonzaga (25-7)
The winner of the Gonzaga/McNeese and Kansas/Samford showdown will play each other in the second round, also hosted in Salt Lake City. Likewise, the winner of the LBS/Arizona game will take on the winner of Nevada/Dayton in round two, also hosted in Salt Lake City.