Bartel: NCAA Selection Committee is Lazy

By Sean Bartel

If I had to describe the tournament committee's performance Sunday,
one word comes to mind.

Lazy.

How else can describe sliding Temple down to a five seed, even though
the Owls have the following over the four seeds (Wisconsin, Maryland,
Vanderbilt, and Purdue): more top 50 and top 100 RPI wins, a better
road/neutral court record, better record the last ten games, and a
better RPI? Or how else would you describe California insanely jumping
to an eight seed despite having just one win against the RPI top 50
(against 11 seed Washington) and three losses to teams outside the RPI
top 100?

But wait: Cal plays in a BCS league and Temple in the Atlantic 10. Lazy anyone?

What about saying your total body of work matters, then bumping Notre
Dame and Marquette up to six seeds? While the Golden Eagles and Irish
have looked like their seeding the last month, their whole season did
not bear out a seeding that high.

Or how angry should Richmond be? The Spiders have a stellar resume,
made the Atlantic 10 finals, beating Xavier just to get there. They
have more RPI top 50 wins than the Musketeers (and a better record),
similar stats everywhere, and lost in double overtime at Xavier just a
few weeks ago. Yet who gets the higher seed?

Xavier, at six. Richmond at seven. Lazy.

How does West Virginia finish the year playing the best basketball in
the country, then lose not only a one seed, but get put into
Kentucky's bracket? Better yet, how does Duke win a weak tea ACC (and
putrid ACC tournament) and somehow get seeded higher than every team
in the Big East? Certainly they're deserving of a one seed, but are
they really saying Duke had a better year than Syracuse, a team that
lost ONE road game?

But the greatest case for the committee's laziness comes with one of
the most glaring errors in bracketing history. I'll show my inner
bracket nerd by pointing this one out.

Years ago the NCAA created a rule stating teams from the same
conference must be seeded so they cannot meet until the regional
finals; this was to discourage regular season rematches, and make sure
each conference got as many teams as far as possible in the tournament
(f.e. If Kansas is 1 seed in the Midwest region, Oklahoma State or any
Big 12 team could not be seeded 16th, 8th, 9th, 4th, 13th, 5th or
12th. They'd have to be on the other side of the region, like the
Cowboys are now at 7). In 2006, when the Big East expanded to 16 and
the ACC to 12, the NCAA relaxed those rules, saying teams could meet
earlier than the regional finals, but only (we assumed) if a
conference got in nine teams, thus making it impossible for teams to
be separated until the late rounds.

That is, until Sunday.

This year's committee saw fit to put two possible Sweet 16 Big East
rematches: 6th-seeded Notre Dame and 2nd-seeded Villanova in the
South, and 6th-seeded Marquette and 2nd-seeded West Virginia in the
Midwest. Why? So far, committee chairman Dan Guerrero has offered
vague, weak reasoning that they tried to avoid regular season
rematches, but couldn't, blah blah blah.

Problem is Kentucky's half of the East bracket and Kansas's half of
the South had no Big East teams. Zero. Zilch. Nada. In this situation,
why not just shift Marquette or Notre Dame there? Guerrero would
probably say doing that, and thus moving them up to a five seed, would
be seeding them too high. And while that's true, I've made ten
brackets so far this year, with nearly everyone including eight Big
East teams, and I've found a way to keep these teams separated until
the regional finals. Yet a committee of "basketball people" locked in
a room can't get this done?

Perhaps I'm just not lethargic enough to be a part of this committee.
But laziness shouldn't be something linked to the most important
college event of the year.

Other mistakes ....

-- I guess the committee doesn't consider the latter a screw up, but
for bracketologists, believe me: It is. The last time the committee
screwed up this bad was 2003, when it accidently put BYU in a region
where they might have to play a regional finals game on Sunday
(because of the school's Mormon faith, BYU doesn't play on Sundays).
So, the tournament committee made a unique ruling: If BYU made the
sweet 16, it would switch from the South region into the Midwest
region, thus screwing up everyone's bracket.

Fortunately for the NCAA tournament committee and its brain freeze,
UConn beat BYU in the first round, and disaster was averted.

-- In case you're wondering, I got 33 of the 34 at-large berths
correct (Mississippi State was left out, and Florida put in) and 52 of
the 65 teams within one seed of their actual seeding. The only one I
was way off on? California as an 8 seed - I had them as an 11. But
I've already stated how thoroughly I disagree with the committee's
choice there.

-- Don't have stats on this, but I'd guess Texas, as an 8 seed in the
East, has the lowest seed ever for a team that reached number one in
the country at some point during the season.

If you're thinking the Longhorns can upset Kentucky in the second
round, you might want to rethink that: UT has struggled the second
half of the season, and is still dealing with a couple of bad
injuries. I'm going with one and done for Texas.

BTW, committee gets credit here: I seeded Texas way too high at six.
Kudos to them for not being fooled by Texas's early season results.

-- Remind me again: How do we seed here? San Diego State and UNLV have
similar resumes (save SDSU's much higher RPI); the Aztecs won the
Mountain West tourney title (beating UNLV for the second time this
year) ... and UNLV is seeded three slots higher?

Is this the reputation NCAA tournament?

-- Only 13 coaches have won two national titles, and just two are in
this tournament: Duke's Mike Krzyzewski and Florida's Billy Donovan.
Syracuse's Jim Boeheim and Kansas's Bill Self look like the only
1-time title winning coaches in position to join them.

-- Congrats to Kansas, the team with the highest RPI for this season.
What does it mean?

Nada. Out of the previous 16 teams to win the regular-season RPI
title, only two, yes, TWO, have won the national title (2001 Duke and
1996 Kentucky).

Here's something fascinating: Duke has had the highest RPI in the
country five of the last 11 regular seasons (2009, 2006, 2004, 2001,
1999), yet has only won a single national title (2001).

-- If Jim Boeheim's Syracuse Orange make the second round? He moves up
to 7th all time in career wins. Final Four? He's in sixth. From there
it gets difficult - he'll be chasing Krzyzewski, and be 45 wins behind
Kentucky's legendary coach Adolph Rupp.

-- Longest streak without a tournament win for a team in this year's
field? That goes to Baylor - way back in 1950 was the last Bear
victory, when BU won a 56-55 thriller over BYU. Close behind is St.
Mary's, who hasn't won since 1959. Or you have San Diego State, making
its sixth appearance while looking for victory number one. Similarly
Cornell is making its fifth appearance sans a win. Its been 27 years
since Ohio or Robert Morris won in the big dance.

But none are trying to re-create the memories Houston is: 26 years ago
Guy Lewis's team fell short against Georgetown in the NCAA Finals.
Back then, that was the Cougars' third straight Final Four, and second
straight national title game. Incredibly, Houston hasn't won a
tournament game since; in fact, they've only made it to the dance four
times. Beating Maryland would be a good way for the NCAA to remember
the best school of the 1980's to not win a national title.

Comments

[Aaron H.]

Here's a question Sean....and I've heard a lot of people wondering this....how come Kansas and Kentucky appear to have gotten tougher regions than Duke? Obviously KU and UK are the 1st and 2nd overall #1 seeds and Duke is the 4th overall #1, so that doesn't make sense. Was hoping u could explain or make some sense of it or have a theory on it....

[Sean Bartel]

Hey Aaron,

In theory, what the committee tries to do is use what's called the S-curve: Meaning If you have Kansas as the best #1 seed, you'd have the weakest #2 seed in their bracket (presumed to be the 8th best team in the nation), then 3rd-best #3 seed, the worst #4 seed, and so on; by the end, if you seeded everyone 1-65, each bracket should end up with the same total of points.

But the committee also tries to keep teams, when possible, in their natural regions - i.e. Ohio State is the #2 seed in Kansas's bracket, the Midwest; West Virginia is the #2 seed in Kentucky's bracket, the East. Perhaps that's what the committee was doing with the two seeds, thus creating a scenario where you have UK and WVU as well as KU and OSU, four extremely hot teams, paired in the same bracket. Because the committee wouldn't want to put Villanova and Syracuse in the same bracket (they do try to keep the top teams in each league in separate brackets), they sent Nova to Duke's bracket and gave the Orange K-State.

Looking at Duke's region further, take the four seed, for example - Duke got a severely weakened Purdue team (because of Robbie Hummel's injury). Let's face it: The Boilers are no longer a four seed, but the committee deemed them such, so that's what we have to work with. The other fours are Vanderbilt, Maryland and Wisconsin. The committee tries hard to avoid regular season rematches; that eliminates Wisconsin (who beat Duke earlier this year). Under NORMAL rules (read my rant earlier) conference teams cannot play until the regional finals, so Maryland couldn't go there. That leaves either Purdue or a Vanderbilt team that was way overseeded at four. The committee chose Purdue for the South, and Vandy to go West.

I don't really see anything sinister in the committee's seedings - it really just did end up that Duke got an easier bracket because of a number of random factors. Really, Louisville could be better than any 8 or 9 seed, and Baylor might just end up winning the region. That said, had the committee done what I projected - putting WVU as a 1 seed and Pittsburgh as a 4 seed - a lot of these problems would have been solved.

But I'm not going to rub that in ...

[Aaron H.]

Thanx....Interesting and educational as always....maybe not only should u b on espn opposite Lunardi, but u should also be on the tourney committee... :)

[Sean Bartel]

If I was on the committee next year, I'd have to deal with Ohio State's Athletic Director, and be forced to tell him how Xavier has been the premier basketball program in Ohio the last 20 years. And I'm not sure if the Columbus folks are ready to deal with that fact! Hehe.

The people that should be angriest about this laziness are the Big East folks - if you're good enough to get eight teams in, they should all have as good a chance to reach the Elite Eight. No, there will never be a day when one conference will get all eight teams to the regional finals, but they should be allowed the chance; right off the bat this year, you know at least two conference teams will be eliminated because the committee couldn't correctly do its job.

Again, put Pittsburgh at a 4 seed, move West Virginia to a one, shift around a few teams, and it's all possible.