MINNEAPOLIS — Separated by about 1,000 miles and decades of fragmentation, the N.C.A.A. will stage an eight-team, four-day, two-city carnival of college basketball starting on Friday.
It is the way it has always been for Final Fours. And despite all the changes after last year’s uproar over inequities between the N.C.A.A. men’s and women’s tournaments, do not expect that approach to shift for at least a decade.
The decision, made over the winter after deliberations by a series of N.C.A.A. committees, defied a recommendation in August by a law firm that the association hired to examine its approach to championship events.