Tonight was the second day of the Hoops HD Selection Committee meetings – our main tasks today were to do another scrub of the Under Consideration Board, fill in more at-large spots into the field and also begin building the Master Seed list.
The list of teams Under Consideration were reduced to 19 teams; teams like Georgetown and Xavier were scrubbed off the board after losses in the Big East Tournament. As the night progressed, bids were guaranteed to open up in the Big East, Big 12, SEC and the Big Ten. There were four more teams added to the four carryover teams from last night in terms of at-large voting. After ranking the teams one through eight, the top four vote-getters were Oklahoma, Florida, TCU and Utah State. The four carryover teams (Belmont, Ohio State, St. John’s and Temple are all marked in red on the Under Consideration Board) can still make the at-large field, but there is no guarantee they all ultimately end up making the field.
Tonight’s major task was building the first eight seed lines of the Master Seed List (see the board below on the right hand side). After debate of the teams, each member sent via secret ballot to Chad Sherwood twelve teams in the first round of voting (whereas the NCAA Committee would send eight teams in the first round). The top twelve teams were ranked one through twelve; the top eight vote-getters were added to the #1 and #2 seed lines. For the next round of voting, each member of the Hoops HD Committee submitted eight more teams to Chad for addition into the Seed List (whereas the NCAA Committee would do four teams). The top eight teams were added to the four carryover teams and were ranked 1-12 by each member via secret ballot. The top eight teams then filled out the #3 and #4 seed lines. The process would be repeated each time until the first eight lines of the Master Seed List were complete. (In short, our committee added two lines at a time; the NCAA Selection Committee would build the list one line at a time.)
Tomorrow night will be the busiest night for our Committee – we will fill in the remaining at-large spots in the field along with any potential contingency teams (especially the Atlantic 10 and American – there is a decent chance that contingency brackets will be needed should either Houston or Cincinnati lose in the American semifinals tomorrow). We will also fill in the remaining eight lines of the Master Seed list along with all teams still alive in their respective conference tournaments in the Ivy League, Sun Belt, Big West, etc. Stay tuned to Hoops HD to see how your favorite team is faring this weekend as we lead up to Selection Sunday!