A 50 team NCT

Seems like this year we'll have a 50 team NCT instead of the usual 48 because of Loyola Chicago's host bid. A lot of people expected there to be 3 open bids created to make two divisions of 26, but rule 6.8(2)(b) says,

In the event that an uneven number of bids is earned to the National Championship Tournament as a result of this rule, a single Open Bid shall be allocated pursuant to Rule 6.09.

However, there will not be uneven divisions--there will be two divisions of 25 teams. In each division, there will be a "swing team," per rule 5.29. The first part of this rule reads:

The Tabulation Director may designate one team in each division as a swing team. The swing team will switch divisions if it is necessary to move a team to comply with Rule 5.32(1). The swing team(s) shall be selected at random, with the caveat that they must be teams from programs with only a single team in that tournament.

This rule seems pretty outdated:
First, Rule 5.32 does not have a section (1) and does not talk about even divisions/bye-busters.
Second, 5.29(2) seems to not have been changed to reflect the addition of ORCS. It references "bonus bid ranking," the old name for TPR, and it designates regionals performance as a tie breaker instead of ORCS.

This outdated language normally wouldn't be an issue--the tie breaker is about what tab should do if a team in each division cancels last minute, which has never happened as far as I can tell. But I wouldn't be surprised if, because of Coronavirus, schools stop their teams from traveling last minute. Maybe AMTA should update this rule before nationals? But I am not sure if that is possible, or if its just expected that Woodward would know to use ORCS and not Regionals.

Having only one open bid instead of three also means that this is the second year in a row where 6-2 is not enough for a bid. At Lancaster, two teams went 6-2 but missed a bid. As of now only GW will be getting of the open bid list, leaving Tufts B in an unfortunate position, especially because teams earned bids with just 5 wins. GW may be joining them, depending on how the next set of ORCS go.

Another complication with having 50 teams is the division draw; normally teams are chunked up into TPR ranks 1-4, 5-8, 9-12, etc. with 2 teams in each chunk going into either division in an effort to create even fields. This can't easily be done with 50 teams. Maybe teams 1-24 and 27-50 will follow this 4 team system, and 25 and 26 will just be a two-team chunk? This would still create even divisions without putting more emphasis on the top or bottom two teams.

(48 + 3) / 2 = 25.5

How does that create 2 divisions of 26 teams?

Loyola Chicago gets a host bid. 48 + 1 (host bid) + 3 (open bid) = 52. 52 / 2 = 26.

Oh, ok. I misunderstood, thought you were saying there would have been 3 open bids had Loyola not taken the bid. Thanks for clarifying, that makes sense.