With a process as deliberately open-ended and always changing as NCAA Tournament selection is, finding perfect themes in selection is a fruitless endeavor.
Selection committee membership changes at least slightly from year to year, and with it their points of emphasis do, too. It’s one of the things that makes bracketology and guessing who the committee will pick so maddening, but also so much fun, if we’re being honest.
It will be impossible to draw a straight line through committee reasoning through every selection, that much is certain from past experience. That doesn’t mean there aren’t certain things we’ll be watching among seeding and especially selection as the field is unveiled Sunday. Among them:
Big win overemphasis again?
In recent years, the committee has become mesmerized by top-level wins. The old Top 50 designation has now been amended to Quadrant 1, but the emphasis will likely be the same. That’s fine, as long as teams are winning those games more than on rare occasion. We’ve pointed it out numerous times in the past, but it bears saying again: a team that goes, say, 3-10 against Quadrant 1 is just proving that when it gets 13 chances-a plenty big sample size-against approximately NCAA at-large caliber teams, it will lose about 77% of those games. There’s no reason for the committee to be rewarding such resumes unless it has no choice (which may almost be the case this year, actually).
Will losses finally matter?
Along the lines of the first item, the committee has had a bad trend in recent years of all but ignoring the number of a team’s losses, as long as they have a few glittery wins or a high strength of schedule. Vanderbilt was a prime example last year, when a 19-15 record not just got the Commodores in the field (iffy, but defensible) but a 9 seed, and the highest of them at that (huh???). Vandy was hardly the only one, though, as five teams got in with 13 or more losses a year ago, and two years earlier six such teams got in. By winning percentage, a 19-13 record is about the equivalent of a 7-5 college football team. The tourney needs less of these teams, not more. Will the committee take notice? Ever?
Brand name buy us a bid?
If you’re going by pure resumes, Louisville, Notre Dame and Syracuse all should almost certainly be out of the NCAA field. All three simply do not measure up, and it’s really not close. It’s awfully easy to wonder, though, if their resumes might get overrated. The committee will claim steadfastly that name or history doesn’t matter; its actions at least some of the time indicate otherwise, especially in recent years. (See: Indiana, Texas, UCLA bids in 2015, as well as horrendous seeding for a team like Middle Tennessee State last year)
Will committee ignore non-conference strength of schedule?
There’s a recent movement by some-including this year’s selection committee chair-to get the impact of non-conference strength of schedule reduced, something we thoroughly detest. One of the few ways to try to get a level playing field in scheduling across Division I is to not allow teams to hide behind their conference affiliation by deliberately putting together an awful, home-loaded non-conference schedule. Making a semi-reasonable effort to play someone, anyone out of conference is something the committee has typically valued-rightfully so. Plus, it’s not that much to ask the schools with every financial advantage to play a non-conference schedule that doesn’t rank in the bottom quarter of the country, and if those buy games are hurting them too much, choose better buy game opponents from the upper-middle of Division I, not the bottom. If the committee does dock non-league schedules, though, it may be bad news in selection or seeding for Florida State, Kansas State, Oklahoma State, Virginia Tech and-of course-Nebraska.
Does how you finish matter?
We know the NCAA has officially taken the old last 10 games (later changed to last 12) information off of its team sheets, a move we’ve never understood. (When comparing two similar resumes, why wouldn’t someone want the hotter of two teams if all else is about equal?) Still, the eye can tell anyone that Arizona State and Oklahoma in particular are two teams who for two months now have been nowhere near the same as they were when they started the season (lest one think this criteria unfairly punishes big names, the same can be said about Temple, and one could possibly argue it about Saint Mary’s too in its regression since a 19-game winning streak). Both teams’ resumes also have plenty of holes in them, especially ASU. If the committee still picks them, it will be a clear statement that, right or wrong (and we’d lean heavily towards the latter) it thinks teams and their opponents are essentially static from beginning to end. At least when it wants too.
What about the forgotten quadrant?
We hear all about Quadrant 1 wins and records now, and some about Quadrant 2, too. Quadrant 4 will come up occasionally, but only in the negative, as it was losses in the old equivalent of Quadrant 4 that were happily slapped in the face of Monmouth by the selection committee two years ago. Rarely is anything ever mentioned about Quadrant 3. We would assert that ignoring those games is wrong: contrary to a myth that has somehow gained increasing legs in recent years, there is a difference between beating the No. 150-ranked team and No. 300 (check the resumes). Furthermore, in the case of teams that don’t have the finances to play nearly 90% of their non-conference games at home or neutral sites, sometimes dominance (or not) against teams in the 100-200 range is the closest measure we can get to how they might perform if they could play a tougher schedule.
Even if/when the committee disregards Quadrant 3 wins for teams like Louisiana-Lafayette or Middle Tennessee State that simply don’t get more chances at Q1/2 victories by birthright, though, it is worth noticing to see if losses to those teams come back to haunt teams like Alabama, Arizona State or Providence. For as much as has been talked of those teams’ big wins, if the committee is being consistent with the same message it sent a team like Monmouth a couple years ago, those losses should also hurt those teams significantly, too.
Any surprise selections in store?
What originally looked like a strong ‘bubble’ this year is gradually getting exposed to not be the case as we get closer to Selection Sunday. As such, there may be a couple teams many thought had lost their shot at an at-large berth worth revisiting in the next couple days. We’d submit chief among them New Mexico State. The Aggies, if they were to lose to Utah Valley in the WAC final would still be a decent 5-4 against Quadrants 1 & 2, including a neutral court win over highly ranked Miami (Fla.). Most will assume NMSU’s 1-3 (so far) Quadrant 1 record and two Quadrant 3 losses are too much to overcome, and it’s likely they are (especially given recent committee behaviors). But we wouldn’t count out NMSU’s chances just yet. Also, keep an eye on a team like Oregon or perhaps Penn State, which could ride into the field based on its success against one team (Ohio State).
(We also would and still might suggest Boise State as a team to watch, though a Thursday night loss to Utah State makes it awfully hard to sell. Even now, the Broncos’ profile is a decent 2-2 vs. Quadrant 1, 6-5 vs. Quadrants 1 and 2, but three Quadrant 3 losses may be a death knell.)
How ridiculous is CBS/Turner’s new bracket show, with announcing the qualifiers first and then the pairings later?
We know the answer to that one. It has many praying for another bracket leak to expose just how silly and needless this is. TV executives, in their never-ending quest to maximize, ‘leverage’ and bleed every penny out of an asset-continue to want to mess with one of the most suspense-packed television moments of the year-and so soon after doing so was a major flop just two years earlier. All of it only suggests just how out of touch executives are with what fans so enjoy about the NCAA Tournament.
Twitter: @Hoopvilleadam
