The 2006 NCAA Division I men's basketball tournament involved 65 teams playing in a

single-elimination tournament A single-elimination, knockout, or sudden death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of each match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final mat ...

to determine the national champion of men's NCAA Division I

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as a culmination of the 2005–06 basketball season. It began on March 14, 2006, and concluded on April 3 at the

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. 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 11th advanced to the Final Four as

George Mason George Mason (October 7, 1792) was an American planter, politician, Founding Father, and delegate to the U.S. Constitutional Convention of 1787, one of the three delegates present who refused to sign the Constitution. His writings, including s ...

of the

Colonial Athletic Association The Colonial Athletic Association (CAA) is a collegiate List of NCAA conferences, athletic conference affiliated with the National Collegiate Athletic Association, NCAA's NCAA Division I, Division I whose full members are located in East Coast ...

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 11-seed in 1986), Oakland region winner

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, who had not made the Final Four since they won the National Championship in

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, and Minneapolis region winner

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, who had not made the Final Four since their runner-up finish in

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also in Indianapolis. Florida won its first-ever national basketball championship by defeating UCLA 73–57 in the final game. Florida's Joakim Noah was named the

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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 No. 14 seed beat a No. 3 seed as Northwestern State defeated

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. No. 13 seed Bradley also defeated No. 4 seed

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and advanced to the Sweet Sixteen by defeating No. 5-seeded

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in the second round. Two No. 12 seeds won as well, as

Montana Montana () is a U.S. state, state in the Mountain states, Mountain West List of regions of the United States#Census Bureau-designated regions and divisions, division of the Western United States. It is bordered by Idaho to the west, North ...

and Texas A&M both won their respective First round matchups. For the second straight year,

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won as a double-digit seed, this time as the No. 11-seeded Panthers defeated Oklahoma in the first round.

Tournament procedure

A total of 65 teams were selected to participate in the tournament. Of that total, 31 of the teams earned automatic bids by winning their conference tournaments. Penn earned an automatic bid by winning the regular-season title of the

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, which did 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 officially named the Opening Round game, but popularly called the "play-in game", had

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, winner of the Northeast Conference tournament, facing Hampton, who won the Mid-Eastern Athletic Conference tournament, for a chance to play top seed Villanova in the first round of the Tournament. Monmouth defeated Hampton, 71–49, to advance to play Villanova. All teams were seeded from 1 to 16 within their regions. The Selection Committee seeded the entire field from 1 to 65. In a practice used since

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, 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

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, No. 2

Connecticut Connecticut () is the southernmost state in the New England region of the Northeastern United States. It is bordered by Rhode Island to the east, Massachusetts to the north, New York to the west, and Long Island Sound to the south. Its cap ...

, No. 3 Villanova, and No. 4 Memphis.UConn, 'Nova No. 1 seeds
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Schedule and venues

The following are the sites that were selected to host each round of the 2006 tournament: Opening Round *March 14 ** University of Dayton Arena,

Dayton, Ohio Dayton () is the sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County. A small part of the city extends into Greene County. The 2020 U.S. census estimate put the city population at 137,644, while Greater ...

(Host: University of Dayton) First and Second Rounds *March 16 and 18 **

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(Host:

San Diego State University San Diego State University (SDSU) is a public research university in San Diego, California. Founded in 1897 as San Diego Normal School, it is the third-oldest university and southernmost in the 23-member California State University (CSU) syste ...

) **

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(Host: Atlantic Coast Conference) ** Jacksonville Veterans Memorial Arena,

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