Tonight, our Hoops HD Selection Committee convened for the first time – each member sent two lists of teams to our committee chairman Chad Sherwood. The first list consisted of up to 36 at-large teams (who had not already won their respective conference tournaments) that each committee member felt should be in the NCAA Tournament as of today. There were a total of 27 teams that got 8 out of a possible 10 votes from all of our committee members and were immediately moved onto the At-Large board. The second list that each committee member sent to Chad included teams Under Consideration; every team that received at least 3 out of 10 votes from the panel were moved into the Under Consideration portion of the Selection Board. Below is the result of our initial ballot:
Counting all of the teams that won their respective regular season titles, there were a total of 49 teams that were placed on the Under Consideration board. Our committee’s first task tonight was to do a quick scrub of the Under Consideration board to scrub off teams that were not deemed worthy of being voted into the field. This left us with 34 remaining teams for nine possible at-large spots available as of tonight.
This year, we also voted on the Centenary Award and the Stallings Award; both teams will also remain on the Under Consideration Board for the remainder of our meetings. Chicago State was named our Centenary winner as the worst team in Division 1; Vanderbilt was named our Stallings winner as the worst Power 5 team.
The next task was to debate which group of teams were the most worthy of inclusion into the at-large board. After the debate, each committee member sent our committee chairman Chad Sherwood a list of eight teams via secret ballot. The top eight vote-getters were then ranked 1 through 8. In the first round of voting, Iowa, Central Florida, Ole Miss and Baylor were voted into the field. There was now more debate about the next wave of at-large teams; in addition to the four carryover teams from the last round of voting, each committee member sent via secret ballot four more teams to Chad. The top four vote-getters were added to the four carryover teams and were ranked 1 through 8. In this round of voting, VCU, Syracuse, Seton Hall and Minnesota were voted onto the at-large board. The remaining carryover teams of Oklahoma, St. John’s, TCU and Utah State will be added to the next round of voting tomorrow night.
At least one at-large bid is guaranteed to open up thanks to results of the ACC Conference Tournament, so as of tonight two at-large spots remain on our board. The Big 12 and Big East have not opened up yet since teams like Xavier and West Virginia remain in their conference tournaments as potential bid thieves.
Below is our Selection Board as of tonight; please note that teams on the Under Consideration board listed in orange have completed their regular seasons and cannot add anything further to their profiles. Teams in white are still alive in their conference tournaments and can potentially add significant wins to their profiles.
Tomorrow, our main tasks will be to fill the remaining at-large spots along with any others that may open up. We will also begin the process of building the Master Seed List; it is expected that we will have 32 teams listed by the end of tomorrow night’s meeting.