When asked about the new NCAA Tournament guideline that kept more teams closer to home, most coaches said they were going to wait and see how it affected the early rounds.

With seven of the remaining 16 teams winning their first two games without even having to pay cell phone roaming charges, the responses are starting to be heard.

There weren’t many complaints about Duke, Kansas and Maryland staying local, since all were seeded No. 1, and the selection committee traditionally has tried to keep them as close to home as possible.

Even Oklahoma being just two hours away in Dallas didn’t cause many rumbles because the Sooners were seeded second.

The ones that jumped out were teams such as Pittsburgh, a No. 3 seed; Illinois, a No. 4; and Texas, a No. 6, getting the advantage of turning a neutral site into an adjunct campus for a day.

Mississippi State, seeded No. 3, lost to Texas in the second round and Bulldogs coach Rick Stansbury was upset that the American Airlines Center in Dallas had a burnt-orange hue Sunday.

“If you’re asking me should a lower seed have an advantage no,” Stansbury said. “We’re the only high seed that had to do this.”

The sixth-seeded California Bears had to travel across the country to Pittsburgh for a first-round game with No. 11 Penn, which traveled across the state.

As a reward for winning that game, Cal got to play third-seeded Pitt about a $3 cab ride from its campus. Mellon Arena was filled with blue-and-gold draped Panthers fans, and that could have been a factor in the two runs in which the Bears went scoreless for 5:11 in the first half and 9:42 in the second.

“Nobody wants to play a host school. It’s certainly not your No. 1 pick,” Cal coach Ben Braun said. “I know Pittsburgh’s pretty happy about playing here.”

Creighton, coming off a double-overtime win over Florida in the first round, had to beat Illinois in Chicago’s United Center to move to the round of 16. The 12th-seeded Bluejays lost 72-60.

When asked before the tournament about playing two Pennsylvania schools in their state as part of the South Regional, Braun said, joking: “What am I going to do, call my congressman?”

No, but the new pod system will be one of the main topics when the National Association of Basketball Coaches meets at the Final Four.

You won’t hear complaints from coaches such as Oklahoma’s Kelvin Sampson, whose team got to play a big game serenaded by “Boomer Sooner” as if it were in Norman.

“It got to a point,” Oklahoma’s Aaron McGhee said, “where I couldn’t hear the plays that were called.”

Sampson said he had always wanted to know what it was like to have a home-crowd advantage in the opening rounds.

“I only wish there was a way I could take them all to San Jose,” the site of this week’s West Regional, he said.

The more vocal comments will come from those affected in the first year of the rule change.

Eighth-seeded Wisconsin’s shot at knocking off a No. 1-seeded team for the second time in three years ended when Maryland won by 30 points in the MCI Center, about 20 minutes even with traffic from its College Park campus.

“When (Juan) Dixon hit his first shot, 18,000 people rose to their feet and we were outnumbered,” Wisconsin guard Travon Davis said.

So, too, might be the people who would like to keep this system.

“I wasn’t particularly in favor it,” Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan said after the second-round loss. “If it had been in Milwaukee and we were there, maybe I would have felt differently. This was quite an experience for this team.”