'First 4' games a dilemma for NCAA tourney pools

Only two of the games will decide No. 16 seeds. The others will decide the No. 11 seed in the Southwest and the No. 12 seed in the East. There are some pretty familiar teams in that mix, too — Clemson vs. Alabama-Birmingham for No. 12 on Tuesday night, and Southern Cal vs. Virginia Commonwealth for No. 11 on Wednesday night.

So instead of pushing up the ballot deadline, there could be incentive to wait even longer to see which teams snag those 11th and 12th spots, especially since teams in those seeds have a pretty good track record of pulling off upsets.

"A lot of the things that we used to do for March Madness, we've had to change a little bit," said Bob Scucci, race and sports book director for Boyd Gaming in Las Vegas.

The point spread might be different depending on whether Clemson or UAB plays West Virginia, and whether USC or VCU Georgetown. So Scucci doesn't want people filling out entire brackets. He wants them to wait until the actual matchups are set, and that will happen soon enough.

No matter how much confusion the new format causes, just remember that it could've been worse.

The NCAA had been considering a tournament with 96 teams.