Tonight was the second day of our Hoops HD Selection Committee meetings via Skype conference call. We ended up doing 4 primary tasks tonight – we added 4 more at-large teams to our board, we scrubbed down our list of teams Under Consideration, we made a decision on the Centenary Award and began seeding the top 8 seed lines.
As for the at-large spots, we were guaranteed of 3 spots opening up at the beginning of the day because of the ACC, Big East and Big 12 being guaranteed to open up. The four teams we voted in to the field were Alabama (which also meant that a spot in the SEC was guaranteed to open up), UCLA, Oklahoma and St. Bonaventure. There is a chance that up to 3 more at-large spots could open up depending on what happens in the A-10, American and Pac-12 (note that these are listed as contingency spots on the Selection Board). However, we are guaranteed that at least one bid will be stolen thanks to Nevada’s loss against San Diego State in the Mountain West Tournament tonight.
Elsewhere, we reduced the number of teams Under Consideration to 14 teams that will be fighting for a maximum of 3 spots. We also came up with a unique compromise to settle the Delaware State/Pitt controversy – Delaware State was named the Centenary Award winner and Pitt was named the winner of the inaugural Stallings Award! The Stallings Award was christened in honor of the worst major program in Division I.
Finally, our most important task of the night was seeding the top 8 seed lines in the NCAA Tournament field. For this exercise, we began by each committee member sending 12 teams via secret ballot to our chairman Chad Sherwood. (The real committee in New York would select 8 teams and vote in teams 1 line at a time). As a time saving measure, our committee would vote 2 lines at a time. We ranked the top 12 vote-getters 1 through 12 and put the top 8 teams into the first 2 seed lines. After more debate of the teams, we voted individually on 8 more teams to add to the 4 carryover teams. Again, we would rank the teams 1 through 12 and added the top 8 teams to the next 2 seed lines. We repeated this process until we had the top 8 seed lines in place.
And here is the Selection Board as it stands right now:
Tomorrow night, our Committee will vote in the final 3 contingency spots onto the at-large board. We will then vote in the remaining seed lines that include all auto-bid winners plus any teams from the Ivy and Sun Belt that are still alive (along with any potential bid thieves) into the Master Seed List. Once the Master Seed List is complete, we will scrub the seed list to account for all results through Saturday night. Tune in again tomorrow to see where we stand!