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.
The Hoops HD Selection Committee – Friday Edition
Friday night was the second night that the Hoops HD Selection Committee met via Zoom conference call. There were two main tasks that were taken care of – the first was to fill out the remaining at-large spots that were able to be filled based on final games in the conference tournament games played on Friday. No bid thief was possible in the SEC, and a spot opened up in the A-10 when VCU was named one of the last three at-large teams along with Louisville and UCLA.
The second and more laborious task was to begin seeding the field. We ended up seeding the top eight lines – votes were done two lines at a time. Committee members ended up choosing their top 12 teams and the top 12 vote-getters were subsequently ranked 1 through 12. Afterwards, each subsequent round of voting ended up with each member choosing 12 teams and then the top 12 vote-getters would be ranked 1 through 12. Here is the board as of Friday night (late night Mountain West game nonwithstanding):
Noteworthy this year is that teams like Georgetown and Oregon State could “steal” automatic bids in the Big East and Pac-12, respectively – even though contingency teams have not been voted into the field yet. If Creighton and Colorado end up winning their respective conference tournaments, there will be two more at-large spots that will open up. The American is also a potential bid-thief conference with Cincinnati and Memphis still alive in that conference tournament.
Our other task will be to seed the remainder of the NCAA Tournament field and to do an initial scrub of the seed list to make corrections as the Committee sees fit. With Virginia and Kansas having to withdraw from their respective conference tournaments, we will also make adjustments as necessary should they (or any other team) announce that they will be unable to compete in the NCAA Tournament this season.