Saturday night was the third and most extensive night of debate among the Hoops HD panelists – the first order of business was to fill out three remaining at-large positions that could potentially fill up in the tournament field. The first step was for each committee member to nominate six teams from the Under Consideration Board (which included Duke against since the Blue Devils announced that they would be able to play in the NCAA Tournament if selected). Along with a carryover Syracuse team, the other teams nominated to fill the final at-large spots were Ole Miss, Drake, Colorado State, Utah State and Boise State. After each committee member ranked the teams one through six, it was revealed that the #1 team was Drake, the #2 team was Utah State and the #3 team was Colorado State.
However, since Georgetown and Oregon State stole automatic bids by winning the Big East and Pac-12, respectively, Colorado State ended up being the first team being left out of the field. Syracuse, Ole Miss and Boise State were the other of the “First Four Out.” However, Utah State is far from guaranteed entry into the field since Cincinnati upset Wichita State in the American conference tournament and a Bearcats win would subsequently knock out the Aggies.
The next phase of the night was to seed the remainder of the field from the 9-line onward to the bottom of the seed list. Teams like Western Kentucky, Nicholls State and UC-Irvine were included in the list until they were eliminated from their respective conference tournaments. After the seed list was built, a scrub of the seed list was done – motions to move the teams up and down were either affirmed or vetoed by a simple majority. Any attempt to remove a team from the field (i.e. Wichita State) could be vetoed by three “no” votes, as was the case for the Shockers.
Tomorrow, the Committee will meet to do a final scrub of the seed list as well as to set up two contingency brackets – the first bracket will be if Cincinnati wins the American and steals a bid; the second bracket would have Houston as the champion and Utah State as the last at-large team into the field.
