NCAA Tournament Selection: Theory and Application
Posted: Thu Feb 11, 2016 12:18 pm
I decided to start this thread because I have read both accurate and inaccurate posts about this topic on other threads.
THEORY
Men’s Basketball Tournament Selection Criteria – NCAA.com
Ron Wellman answers questions about conference tournaments, Big Dance – NCAA.com Press Release - March 12, 2014
NCAA Basketball Tournament Selection Process Wikipedia
APPLICATION
The following information concerns the 2015 NCAA Tournament – specifically, the application of the Selection Committee’s stated criteria.
NCAA Men’s Basketball RPI Rankings – RealTimeRPI.com – Sunday, March 15, 2015 (with NCAA Tournament Teams shown in bold font)
Here is the committee's official 1-68 list. Dayton was the last team in. – Stewart Mandel, Fox Sports – Sunday, March 15, 2015
2015 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament Bracket – NCAA.com
2015 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament – Wikipedia
Three things the selection committee got right and three it got wrong – Jeff Eisenberg, The Dagger, Yahoo! – Sunday, March 15, 2015
THEORY
Men’s Basketball Tournament Selection Criteria – NCAA.com
Team sheets
The committee often refers to "team sheets" when comparing team performance. The team sheets contain in-depth team information about strength of schedule, performance against top-50 teams and home/road records.
Ron Wellman answers questions about conference tournaments, Big Dance – NCAA.com Press Release - March 12, 2014
Q. The Kenpom analytic service that a lot of coaches use to evaluate teams, I'm curious if that's part of your discussion at all. There's some dramatic swings in what a team's RPI is and what a teams Kenpom number is. I wonder if the Committee is aware of those situations.
RON WELLMAN: To me, the Committee is very aware of everything. The Committee looks at every piece of data that we can put our hands on.
Kenpom, RPI, all that data, we have a list of data points that we can use. Sagarin, the LRNC, it just goes on and on.
Various Committee members will emphasize and use that data to various degrees. Some of them will reply on certain data more than others. So it just depends upon the Committee member.
This process can be very subjective. Certain Committee members will value certain pieces of data more than others. All of that information is available and easily accessible by the Committee members.
NCAA Basketball Tournament Selection Process Wikipedia
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------The selection committee only selects the 36 teams who receive at-large bids. Though each conference receives only one automatic bid, the selection committee may select any number of at-large teams from each conference. The at-large teams generally come from college basketball's top conferences, including the ACC, The American, Atlantic-10, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, Conference USA, Mountain West, Pac-12, and SEC. Many of these at-large teams, however, are "on the bubble", meaning their chances of gaining a tournament berth are borderline, and they will not know if they have gained entry until the Selection Sunday bracket announcements.
The RPI rating is often considered a factor in selecting and seeding the final few teams in the tournament field. However, the NCAA selection committee in 2015 said the RPI is no longer relevant only utilized for grouping the teams into groups such as top 50 and top 100 teams to value the wins and losses and not as a factor for selection.
Additionally, the committee officially considers other computer rankings such as ESPN's BPI, Sagarin, and Pomeroy Ratings which use additional factors considered by the committee such as injured players in the case of the BPI.
Additionally, committee members consider how teams do on the road and at neutral courts, strength of conference and schedule, non-conference strength of schedule, record against other selected tournament teams, and other extenuating factors. Finally, the "eye test" is often quoted by pundits as something the committee uses, however NCAA.org's sparse description of the selection process doesn't officially mention the "eye test".
APPLICATION
The following information concerns the 2015 NCAA Tournament – specifically, the application of the Selection Committee’s stated criteria.
NCAA Men’s Basketball RPI Rankings – RealTimeRPI.com – Sunday, March 15, 2015 (with NCAA Tournament Teams shown in bold font)
Here is the committee's official 1-68 list. Dayton was the last team in. – Stewart Mandel, Fox Sports – Sunday, March 15, 2015
2015 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament Bracket – NCAA.com
2015 NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament – Wikipedia
Three things the selection committee got right and three it got wrong – Jeff Eisenberg, The Dagger, Yahoo! – Sunday, March 15, 2015