My husband (who is Doper Andy L) thinks that “Round of 32” is a boring name for the second stage of the NCAA basketball tournament. He points out that “Sweet 16”, “Elite 8” and of course, “Final 4” are much better.
So, can anybody think of a better one?
The Thirsty 32.
The Thrilling 32.
The Thundering 32.
Won and Done.
It’s the second round. I’ve been known to call it The Deuce. As in, “They made it to The Deuce” or “They won’t make it past The Deuce.”
No one knows what the hell I’m talking about.
None. It doesn’t need a name.
You don’t need to proclaim you are into the round of 32 because it means you won one game. And while winning one game is great and all, you aren’t printing t-shirts because of it.
It’s much harder to win two games vs (presumably) better competition, and that deserves an award
They call day one of the Tourny, Day One.
And then on Day Two, they are still playing First Round games.
You should say “looks like they dropped the Deuce.” I’m sure you’ll get a lot of reactions. 
A team could be revved up (or wrapped up) like a Deuce.
Except it’s not, at least not anymore. The NCAA has taken to calling the 4 play in games the first round, the 64 teams are the 2nd round, and the 32 teams are the 3rd round. It’s stupid – the play in games don’t constitute a “round” – but there you go.
Funny thing about the Play In games… I never hear about them until AFTER the 64 is set. I guess only the schools involved get advanced notice. (?) For the longest time, we had just Auto Invites, like conf tourney placing, or At Large bids. I kind of dislike the Play In set up.
Your post is the perfect example as to why the NCAA calls the round of 64 the “second round”; by calling the first four “play-in games,” you imply that the losers should not be considered to have ever been in the tournament (and subject to the same penalties as any non-tournament team if, for example, they hang up an “NCAA TOURNAMENT 2015” banner or sell “NCAA TOURNAMENT 2015” T-shirts).
However, the names will change back to “first round” and “second round” for the rounds of 64 and 32 starting next year. Too many people were confused by the new names, and the NCAA’s attempt to fix the “stop saying that First Four games are not part of the tournament” problem is falling on deaf ears.
My point is that they should stop doing the play in games, they add nothing to the tournament IMO. It’s not a slight against the teams in those games, but 64 teams are plenty. There’s no need to make it 68. I wish the First Four games were not part of the tournament, so I don’t see this as a problem.
At the risk of being pedantic, these phrases are not comparable. The Round of 32 is just that–a round of games during which you play down from 32 teams to 16. The Sweet 16, Ellite 8, and Final Four are clusters of teams which have advanced to the appropriate stage of the tournament.
The rounds with names are the quarter-finals, semi-finals, and finals. Before the quarters the prefixes get out of hand, so we just have the round of 64, the round of 32, and the round of 16. (Alternatively, sometimes the round of 16 is called the “regional semi-finals” and the round of 8 is the “regional finals”.) Creating a name for the final 32 teams won’t change that.
Arthur.
The problem is, the NCAA Bylaws are quite clear in that (a) a team that wins a conference championship (in pretty much any team sport) is guaranteed a spot in that sport’s NCAA Championship tournament (one of the reasons the NCAA doesn’t run the FBS football tournament), and (b) there must be at least 34 at-large teams (which is why they went from 64 to 65 in the first place).
Personally, I think they should bring back the “true” play-ins - tell the six conferences that have not won a tournament game since at least 2010 (Big Sky,
Big South, MAAC, Southern, SWAC, WAC) that they need to leave the Friday before Selection Sunday open, and the six conference champions will be paired into three games, with the winners put into the tournament. The key is, the games have to be played before the brackets are announced - otherwise they’re not “play-ins”.
How difficult is it to change the number 34 in part (b) via the NCAA by-laws process?
The official NCAA March Madness App calls the games in Dayton the “First Four(R)”. (yes, the registered trademark symbol is rendered in the app’s schedule headers).
Sweet 16, Elite 8, Final 4 are all registered trademarks too. Don’t put it beyond the NCAA trying to figure out a trademark-able name for 2nd (64) and 3rd (32) rounds in the future. 
I like “The Tolerable Thirty-Two”
Brian
Majority vote of the Division I schools, I think. The number was changed from 32 to 34 for the 2010-11 season.
The Second Dance
The Great 4x8
The Few 32
The 32 Crew