The Hoops HD Committee Report: Thursday, March 10

Click HERE for Jon Teitel’s Day 1 Coverage of the Big Ten Tournament

Click HERE for Jon Teitel’s latest Bracket Projection (through Wednesday’s games)

SITES YOU NEED TO CHECK OUT FROM SOME OF THIS YEAR’S COMMITTEE MEMBERS!!

Warren Nolan’s RPI and Statistical Site for College Sports – CLICK HERE

Podcaster and Bracketologist Extraordinaire Andy Bottoms at Assembly Call – CLICK HERE

Galen Clavio at Crimson Cast – CLICK HERE

Galen Clavio again at Sports Politik – CLICK HERE

Scott Swartz at The Buffet – CLICK HERE

Tonight is the first official night that our Hoops HD Committee met via Skype conference call to begin bracketing the field for the 2017 NCAA Tournament. After last night’s results, our committee was charged with filling the remaining 6 at-large sports plus another at-large spot guaranteed to open up due to the ACC having all remaining teams in the NCAA Tournament.

Our first order of business was awarding the 2017 Centenary Award – the honor went to Alabama A&M. Their prize for winning the award will be their placement on the Under Consideration Board for the duration of the committee meetings. We also began to shrink the Under Consideration Board down to 26 candidates that have a realistic shot at inclusion to the field. We began to discuss the remaining teams and then each individual committee member would choose 8 teams from the list that were Under Consideration. The top 8 vote-getters would then be ranked 1 through 8. In the first wave of balloting, we added Michigan, Northwestern, Arkansas and Seton Hall to the field. (That’s right Wildcat fans – go ahead and start contacting your travel agents for next week!) The remaining 4 teams carried over and then, after further debates, each committee member would choose 4 more teams from the Under Consideration list. The top 4 vote-getters would then be ranked 1 through 8 with the 4 carry-overs.

Since there were only 3 open at-large spots at the time of the vote, the top 3 teams were added into the field: Marquette, Michigan State and Xavier. The Musketeers got voted in after their win against Butler in the Big East tournament. It was at this point that our committee stopped for the night. After Creighton beat Providence, we were assured of a spot in the Big East opening up, so we will fill that spot during tomorrow night’s meetings. We will also begin the process of filling in the Master seed list – depending on time, we will add up to 32 teams (8 seed lines) to the master seed list for tomorrow night’s meetings. Other spots will eventually open up (i.e. Big 12, Big 10, SEC), but with TCU and Kansas State scoring upsets in the Big 12 Tournament, there is still a chance for a bid thief to surface in a major conference.

Below is the Selection Board through tonight’s games: (note that teams highlighted in orange in the Under Consideration board have been eliminated from their respective conference tournaments)