I don't really get the logic of the NCAA Tournament.

I was reading an article earlier today about the decision to expand the tournament from 65 to 68 teams, which meant that 8 teams would have to play a game for 4 spots, thus whittling the number of teams down to a proper 64. But the tournament officials are insisting that the 4 games to determine who gets to play another day be called the "first round", while the actual first round gets called the "second round."

In years past the game between the 64th and 65th team was merely called the "play-in" game. But apparently they don't want to call it that anymore, because it gives off the perception that they're not actually in the NCAA tournament. Well... they aren't really. If you have 60 teams already locked in for a game while you have 8 teams play an extra one to get the chance to play one of those other rested 60 teams... then it's certainly not a "first round." It's a play-in game. Or whatever you might call it. Point being, it's confusing for everyone to call this the "first round" when it's not the first round for 90% of the teams, and stupid to call it that just to avoid pissing off the teams that have to play in the game... since you already pissed them off by putting them in the game.

Also, I don't get the seeding. Two of the matchups are between potential 16 seeds, but for the other two, one's a matchup between potential 11 seeds and the other's between 12 seeds. How did they go about determining which of those 4 teams gets to be an 11 seed and who gets to be the 12 seed? If it's the best two teams as 11 seeds and the lesser teams as 12, then that means that the 11 seeds get shafted by being a better team, since they have to play a tougher opponent in the other 11 seed rather than one of the 12 seed teams.

If they matched up the best and the worst as 11 seeds and the 2nd & 3rd best as the 12 seeds, that means that if the worst team of the 4 somehow pulls off a victory... they get an easier matchup, since the 11 seed will play the 6 seed instead of the 5 seed.

I'm assuming other people have complained about all this, but I haven't seen it anywhere. Surely other people have complained... right? Cause this is all really dumb.