How I Would Fix the NCAA Selection Process

Pre S. - If you believe Lunardi, Orange fans should root for Florida over Kentucky to help Syracuse's chances at a 3-seed. You could also make an argument to put SU ahead of UNC if the Tar Heels lose to Duke.

Also, everyone should always root against Kentucky and UNC because they're evil.

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On Sunday, March 11, 2007 most Syracuse fans watched the selection show waiting to see what seed Syracuse would get. The Orange were 21-8 with a 10-6 record in the Big East. No 10-win Big East team had ever missed the NCAAs. SU had finished the season 5-1, and had just beat UConn in their opening Big East tournament game in what many perceived to be a "play-in" game to make the NCAAs. A tourney birth seemed certain. It wasn't. Syracuse was left off the bracket.

For the first time in over 15 years, I didn't fill out a single bracket that year. In fact, according to The Sports Sauna's official history the 2007 tournament didn't happen. (Much like Syracuse mysteriously never played Seton Hall this year, according to Sauna archives.)

I also cooked up a neat conspiracy theory, suggesting Arkansas had more friends on the selection committee than Syracuse did, which helped them get the last bid into the field.

Now, I'm kinda like John Locke before his dad stole his kidney; I'm a pretty trusting person. I don't believe that there are secret plots and backroom deals to get certain teams in and give certain teams better seeds. I trust that when a team from a committee member's conference comes up for discussion, they really do leave the room. However, I think to suggest the process is foolproof and above reproach is naive. You can't expect committee members to be emotionless, and to not be moved, one way or the other, even on a subconscious level by their fellow committee members' loyalties, especially when you sequester these people together for a full weekend. It's human nature. Furthermore, you can't expect committee members to follow every team all year round, and to be informed enough heading into their duties to grasp the basketball landscape.

Four years later I still hate the selection process. Here are five things I'd do to improve it, partly to protect against something like the 2007 debacle, and partly get more mid-majors into the tournament:

• Put journalists on the committee - You can see the current committee roster right here. Right now the committee is made up of 8 athletic directors from Ohio State, Xavier, Wake Forest, UConn, Texas-San Antonio, Utah State, California, and Southern Methodist. Two conference commissioners, from the Big Sky and the Big 12, round out the group of ten. I would rotate four media members, one from each of the four "regions," onto the committee every year. Call me crazy, but I think college basketball journalists know more about the college basketball season than ADs and Conference Commissioners. Okay, so it's a dicey area as far as ethics goes to have journalists shape the tournament they will be covering. But aren't journalists already shaping college sports through the weekly polls in both basketball and football?
  

• Put a "Bracketologist" on the committee - It doesn't have to be Joe Lunardi. It could be...one of the other guys. Joey Joe-Joe Junior Lunardi Shabadoo, of collegebrackets.org. The thing I love about Lunardi is not that he projects so many teams correctly when the brackets come out. It's that he lays out all the information in a way that is easy to follow throughout the season, and makes sense as he puts his final bracket together at this time of year. It is rational and transparent. And again, I guarantee you he's spent exponentially more time thinking about the bracket than the selection committee.

• Increase the value of the Polls and the RPI - Here's where I want to help the little guys. Remember when Utah State was left out of the 2004 tournament despite a 25-2 record and being ranked at the time? (Neither did I until I read it on wikipedia.) Why not put in a rule that says if you get 10 votes or more in the AP or Coaches poll, you're in the tournament? We'd have to figure out a way to have those polls updated after the last games on selection Sunday, but 35 teams in the most recent polls got 10 votes or more. Most of those teams are already locks. St. Mary's would be breathing easy (11 votes in the coaches) and deservedly so. They're a good team.

As for the RPI, a quick comparison between the top 30 and Lunardi's latest bracket tells me all 30 are locks for this tournament. Once you get to number 31, UAB, you start to hit the bubble teams. A 30 RPI or better should be safe. (Note: it hasn't always been, especially if you're a mid-major. See: Missouri State.) You don't even have to set a specific cut point for mandatory entry into the field. If the committee is given specific instructions to weight the RPI and the polls heavily - more heavily than they have in the past - teams like UAB, Harvard (37), and Penn State (39) will make the field.

• Weight a Team's Regular Season In-Conference Result - I would love it if regular season conference champs AND conference tournament champs got automatic bids, but there is no way the major conferences would let that happen without the field expanding to 96. Plus, there would be an incentive for small conferences to convince their regular season champs to throw conference tournament games. It's problematic. But the committee should still consider a regular season conference championship when it is weighing a bubble team.
  

• Tell the committee to select "the 37 teams who had the best season" - Right now the instructions ask the committee merely to select "the 37 best teams." You'll hear Jay Bilas repeat that line tonight on ESPN's selection show as he supports the major conference teams that got in over mid-major teams. (I really hate Bilas at this time of year...except 2007, when he was SU's biggest supporter. On a related note, I hate Doug Gottlieb all times of the year.) To an extent, I do think the committee measures teams based on what they accomplished during the season. Otherwise there would be even fewer mid-major at-large bids. Still, you're more likely to see an underachieving talent-loaded major team than an overachieving mid-major get a higher seed than they probably should.

Continuing Hatred of the NCAA Selection Committee

I've never been a huge, huge proponent of the "East Coast Bias" theories floating around. But as UNLV wrapped up their impressive upset of Wisconsin in the phony NCAA tournament, Jim Nantz noted that the Rebels had been unhappy with their 7-seed coming into the tournament. That got me thinking... Southern Illinois got a 4-seed...Butler got a 5-seed...and UNLV, a team with 28 wins in a high-mid-major conference, gets a 7-seed? THAT'S east coast bias.

So I went back and checked Joe Lunardi, who I believe picks a fairer bracket then anyone. Sure enough, he had UNLV seeded at FOUR. He had the Salukis at a 3 (very fair, considering that the MVC is probably stronger than the Mountain West). But he had Butler as a 7.

Similarly, Nevada got a 7-seed. Lunardi had them seeded at 5.

Here's what I think: the Pac-10 can claim to be underrated all they want. Their top teams generally play well enough in the NCAAs, and they regularly get into the final four or better. But they don't regularly out-perform their seeding. The east coast knows about the Pac-10. We know Arizona always has talent. We know Oregon tends to have good guards and chokes early in the tournament. We know UCLA has a fantastic coach that has them playing good defense. And of course, we know about Gonzaga.

But I didn't hear anything about UNLV all year. I never know what's going on in the Mountain West until their conference tournament winds down. We know about Nick Fazekas because he's had such a long, successful career. But I probably don't respect the WAC quite as much as I should.

I think that the committee treats the Pac-10 fairly relative to the other majors, but I don't think they treat the western mid-majors fairly relative to the mid-majors east of the Mississippi.

Bottom line: I'm slightly more concerned about San Diego State (out of the WAC, facing Syracuse Monday night in the NIT) than I was 30 minutes ago.