Tonight, we kicked off our annual Hoops HD Selection Committee meetings via Skype conference call. Our night consisted of 3 separate tasks: 1) scrub off teams from the Under Consideration board that will not be added to the field; 2) vote on our Centenary Award winner and 3) add all the remaining 8 at-large teams to the board.
On the first front, we reduced our list of teams Under Consideration to 21 for the remaining at-large spots that opened up earlier tonight. With every team from the ACC, Big East and Big 12 now on the at-large board, we are assured of at least 3 additional at-large spots opening up.
Unlike years past, we have a close call for the Centenary Award this season. Our conventional candidate would be Delaware State (2-28 in D-I, 2-14 in the MEAC); however, we also have Pittsburgh as a Centenary finalist this year since they went an imperfect 0-19 in the ACC this season (and fired Kevin Stallings earlier today). The call is close enough that we do not have a winner as of tonight; we will keep you posted in tomorrow night’s recap.
Last, and certainly not least, we began to debate the merits of teams on the Under Consideration board. Each member of our Committee submitted a list of 8 teams via secret ballot to our chairman Chad Sherwood. The top 8 teams would then be ranked 1 through 8 and the top 4 teams were added to our at-large board. The first 4 teams added to our board tonight were NC State, Kansas State, Houston and Missouri. We then debated the remaining teams Under Consideration a little further and submitted lists of 4 teams per member via secret ballot. The top 4 vote-getters were added to the previous 4 carryover teams and were ranked 1 through 8. In this wave of balloting, we added Florida State, Providence, Butler and Texas to our field. It was at this point that we were assured of at-large spots opening up in the Big East and Big 12 that we mentioned earlier.
Below is the Selection Board through tonight’s games; please note that the teams listed in orange in the Under Consideration column are still playing games in their conference tournaments and can further enhance their profiles. Teams not shaded have completed play during the regular season.
For tomorrow night’s meetings, we will begin seeding the top 8 lines on the Master Seed list. While the real committee in New York has already seeded the top 2 lines as of Wednesday, we are taking results from both tonight and tomorrow night into account as we begin the seeding process. We will also fill any remaining at-large spots that are guaranteed to open up through Friday night’s games; as of right now, that would be three spots. Stay tuned to see our committee report for tomorrow night!