Spazsdad wrote:I will take this moment to have my sour grapes about that. If they had kept the field at 64 it makes a perfect bracket. Instead by adding 4 extra teams it causes 8 teams to play an extra game. Out of those 8 teams there are 3 of the top 4 finishers from last year and two of them play each other.
I also prefer a perfect bracket (e.g. 64) since pool play doesn't count. The extra bobtail/play-in games should be drawn by teams that received at-large and invite berths.
PGF used to seed the top 4 returners. Now winning the tournament carries no more weight than an invited team.
I recall ASA 18G doing that...
PGF ditched geographical bracket protection after the first year, mainly because it gave almost all the byes in the 48-team 16U bracket to Cal/SoCal teams. They should put regional protection into effect, even if it's just for the non-SoCal teams.