Editing Talk:NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament (section)

== Getting Article to GA Status ==

This article has long been overloaded with unnecessary things. As the main article about one of the most popular sporting events in the US, this really should be of higher quality. I did some editing of the technical description of the tournament and seed list several months ago, and now am wanting to start the discussion on broader changes that are needed. I'm a relatively new editor, so not sure exactly where to start but feel like the lead could be a good place to focus on to help determine what the rest of the article looks like.

===Lead Improvements===

Right now, it is a mess. Per [[MOS:INTRO]] the lead should summarize the event, which it does not do. The technical description of the tournament and seeding is too detailed and possibly even confusing to readers unfamiliar with the subject; this should be brief as there is a much more detailed description that is easier to understand in its own section. Several things are given undue weight ([[MOS:LEADREL]]), including putting the discussion of the wider cultural relevance in the second paragraph--and then the cultural relevance is mentioned again in the fourth paragraph with the TV broadcast. The COVID tournament get's its own paragraph at the bottom of the lead, which is definitely not relevant enough for a full paragraph anymore (and maybe not relevant for lead mention at all).

It would also be good to limit the listing of previous champions. While there are relatively few teams that have won two or more, the paragraph is too verbose listing them all. UCLA should obviously remain, but after that I'm not sure what route to go. I could see limiting it to the top five champions, limiting it to those with three or more titles, or listing the teams with the most championships, most final four appearances, most wins as a way to emphasize different ways to measure postseason success.

The tournament was created in [[1939 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament|1939]] by the [[National Association of Basketball Coaches]], and was the idea of [[Ohio State Buckeyes men's basketball|Ohio State]] coach [[Harold Olsen]]

'''Here is my proposed draft of a new lead:'''

The '''NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament''', also known as '''''NCAA March Madness''''' is a [[single-elimination tournament]] played in the United States to determine the men's [[college basketball]] national champion of the [[NCAA Division I|Division I]] level in the [[National Collegiate Athletic Association]]. The tournament currently consists of 68 teams and was first conducted in [[1939 NCAA basketball tournament|1939]]. Known for its upsets of favored teams, it has become one of the biggest annual sporting events in the US.

The tournament teams include champions from 32 Division I conferences and 36 teams which are awarded [[At-large bid|at-large berths]]. These "at-large" teams are chosen by an [[NCAA basketball tournament selection process|NCAA selection committee]], then announced in a nationally televised event dubbed ''[[NCAA basketball tournament selection process#Selection%20Sunday|Selection Sunday]]''. Teams are placed in four regions and given a seed between 1 and 16 within the region. The tournament consists of seven rounds and is conducted over three successive weeks. The first week narrows the field down to 16 teams, starting with eight teams competing in the [[First Four]] to advance to the main bracket. The second week consists of the Regional Semifinals & Finals, narrowing the field down to four teams. The final week is played at one site and known as the [[Final Four (college basketball)|Final Four]] and a National Champion is crowned.

The current 68-team format was adopted in [[2011 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament|2011]], and has remained largely unchanged since [[1985 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament|1985]] when it expanded to 64 teams. Before then, the tournament sized varied from as little as 8 to as many as 53. The field was restricted to conference champions until at-large bids were extended in [[1975 NCAA Division I basketball tournament|1975]] and teams were not fully seeded until [[1979 NCAA Division I basketball tournament|1979]]. In [[2020 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament|2020]], the tournament was cancelled for the first time due to the [[COVID-19 pandemic]]; in the subsequent season, the [[2021 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament|tournament]] was contested completely in the state of [[Indiana]] as a precaution.

All tournament games are broadcast by [[CBS]], [[TBS (American TV channel)|TBS]], [[TNT (American TV network)|TNT]], and [[truTV]] under the program name ''[[NCAA March Madness (TV program)|NCAA March Madness]]''. With a contract through 2032, [[Paramount Global]] and [[Warner Bros. Discovery]] pay $891 million annually for the broadcast rights. The NCAA distributes revenue to participating teams based on how far they advance, which provides significant funding for college athletics. The tournament has become part of American popular culture through bracket contests that award money and prizes for correctly predicting the outcomes of the most games. It is estimated that tens of millions of Americans, including those who don't follow regular-season college basketball or sports in general, participate in a bracket contest each year.

37 different schools have won the tournament. [[UCLA Bruins men's basketball|UCLA]] has the most with 11 championships; their coach [[John Wooden]] has the most titles of any coach with 10. The [[Kentucky Wildcats men's basketball|University of Kentucky]] has eight  titles, the [[North Carolina Tar Heels men's basketball|University of North Carolina]] has six titles, and [[Duke Blue Devils men's basketball|Duke University]] and [[Indiana Hoosiers men's basketball|Indiana University]] both have five titles, [[UConn Huskies men's basketball|University of Connecticut]] and the [[Kansas Jayhawks men's basketball|University of Kansas]] both have four titles, and [[Villanova Wildcats men's basketball|Villanova University]] has three national titles.

[[User:Ha2772a|Ha2772a]] ([[User talk:Ha2772a|talk]]) 21:55, 21 September 2022 (UTC)


===Article Structure===
The article needs to be rearranged and focused. It's unclear why some content is in this very long article instead of being in other articles, and we definitely need a more robust history section that actually describes the history of the tournament and not just certain feats. As i look through the whole article it becomes much clearer that this is basically a bettor's guide to the tournament for bracket pools in many places.

# History
## 1939-1974: Competing with the NIT
## 1975-1984: At-Large Bids
## 1985-2000: 64 Team Field
## 2000-Present: Modern Tournament
# Tournament Format
## Qualifying
## Seeding
## Rounds
# Winners
# Television Coverage and Revenue
# Traditions and Awards
## Championship Traditions
## Final Four Awards
## Regional Awards
# Records
## Team records
### Tournament appearance streaks
### Most 1 Seeds
### Most games won
### Most Final Four & Championship Game appearances
### Successful Low-Seeded Teams
## Player records
## Coach Records
# Influence
## NBA Draft
## Popular Culture
# Venues

The statistics section is the biggest problem. Most of these stats are included in the [[NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament upsets]] and [[NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament records]] articles in a much more readable and better organized format. I suggest we include only the most important statistics, using mostly prose to write those subsections, and link out to those articles. For example, we only need to give a summary for the low-seeded teams. We give specific mention to UMBC, St. Peter's, Syracuse, Wichita State, Villanova, UConn, and the collection of 11 seeds to make the final four, since they have achieved the farthest advance for their seed lines. We can give general mention to the remaining upsets and teams, such as "Ten 15 seeds have beaten a two seed, and twenty 14 seeds have beaten a three seed in their first-round matchups." I think we axe the rest of the seed content, moving it to the respective articles they belong in. We can then add in individual performance records for players, and then simplify the coach records to just be the most important, like games won, championships, and final fours.

The Results by school & year should be its own article completely.

I think we should break up the tournament evolution section. The table of field size can go in the more robust history section, the seeding history should move to another article or its own article entirely. The other changes sections could all be summarized in the new history section, and they repeat a lot of content anyway that's already included in the format section.

The Venues section should give a summary about final four venues but link out to the full table. Some of the language from the current Evolution of the Tournament/Venues section can be used but a lot of it's dated now that the dome policy is no longer in effect. There's no reason to have it here, and if we want a table with venues for each year we should just make it a table of championship game results with winners. That's what it's functioning as right now.

I've also made some suggestions for history subsections, with four eras to split it into.

The Popular Culture section can be changed to Influence to include the NBA Draft section. While the pop culture section probably needs some clean up, it's one of the better sections in the article [[User:Ha2772a|Ha2772a]] ([[User talk:Ha2772a|talk]]) 22:57, 21 September 2022 (UTC)