Season 2005–06 Dates 14 Mar 2006 – 3 Apr 2006 Attendance 70,254 | MOP Joakim Noah Florida Teams 65 Finals site RCA Dome | |
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Champions Florida (1st title, 2nd title game,
3rd Final Four) Runner-up UCLA (13th title game,
16th Final Four) Semifinalists George Mason (1st Final Four)
LSU (4th Final Four) Winning coach Billy Donovan (1st title) Champion Florida Gators men's basketball Similar 2007 NCAA Division I, 2005 NCAA Division I, 2004 NCAA Division I, 2008 NCAA Division I, 2009 NCAA Division I | ||
The 2006 NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Tournament involved 65 schools playing in a single-elimination tournament to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I college basketball as a culmination of the 2005–06 basketball season. It began on March 14, 2006, and concluded on April 3 at the RCA Dome in Indianapolis, Indiana.
Contents
None of the tournament's top seeds advanced to the Final Four, the first time since 1980 that this occurred. For the second time in history, a team seeded eleventh advanced to the Final Four as George Mason of the Colonial Athletic Association won the Washington, D.C. region. They were joined by Atlanta region winner LSU, who was the first team to advance to the Final Four as an eleventh-seed in their most recent appearance there in 1986, Oakland region winner UCLA, who had not made the Final Four since they won the national championship in 1995, and Minneapolis region winner Florida, who had not made the Final Four since their runner-up finish in 2000 in Indianapolis.
Florida won their first ever national basketball championship by defeating UCLA 73-57 in the final game.
Florida's Joakim Noah was named the Most Outstanding Player of the NCAA Tournament.
George Mason's run was one of several upsets by lower-seeded teams in the tournament. For the second consecutive year a #14 seed beat a #3 seed as Northwestern State defeated Iowa. In the same sub-regional pod, #13 seed Bradley defeated #4 seed Kansas and advanced to the Sweet Sixteen by defeating #5 seeded Pittsburgh in the second round. Two #12 seeds won as well, as Montana and Texas A&M both won their respective first round matchups. For the second straight year, Wisconsin-Milwaukee won as a double-digit seed, as the #11 seed Panthers defeated Oklahoma in the first round.
Tournament procedure
A total of 65 teams were selected to participate in the tournament. 31 of the teams earned automatic bids by winning their conference tournaments. Pennsylvania earned an automatic bid by winning the regular-season title of the Ivy League, which does not conduct a conference tournament. The remaining 34 teams were granted "at-large" bids, which are extended by the NCAA Selection Committee.
The initial game on March 14, popularly called the "play-in game", had Monmouth, winner of the Northeast Conference tournament, facing Hampton, who won the automatic bid from the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference championship, for a chance to play top seed Villanova in the first round of the tournament. Monmouth defeated Hampton, 71–49, to earn that right.
All 64 teams were seeded from 1 to 16 within their regionals; the winner of the play-in game automatically received a 16 seed. The Selection Committee seeded the entire field from 1 to 65. In a practice since 2004, the ranking of the four top seeds against each other would determine the pairings in the Final Four. The top overall seed would be seeded to play the fourth overall seed in the national semifinals, should both teams advance that far. In 2006, these rankings were as follows: No. 1 Duke, No. 2 Connecticut, No. 3 Villanova, and No. 4 Memphis. [1]
The four regionals were officially named after the four host cities, a practice which also began in 2004. However, in 2007, the NCAA returned to naming regionals by their geographic location. The 2006 regionals were:
The first and second round games were played at the following sites:
Each regional winner advanced to the Final Four, held on April 1 and 3 in Indianapolis, hosted by Butler University and the Horizon League.
Atlanta Regional
(*)-Denotes an Overtime Game
Record by conference
*Monmouth University won the Opening Round game.
The America East, Atlantic Sun, Big South, Big West, Ivy, MAAC, MAC, MEAC, Ohio Valley, SoCon, SWAC, Mid-Continent, and Sun Belt conferences all went 0–1.
The columns R32, S16, E8, F4, and CG respectively stand for the Round of 32, Sweet Sixteen, Elite Eight, Final Four, and Championship Game.
Announcers
Greg Gumbel once again served as the studio host, joined by analysts Clark Kellogg and Seth Davis.