NEWS AND NOTES
-For our final Under the Radar Video Podcast of the season – CLICK HERE
-For Chad Sherwood’s UTR Game of the Day, which involves a New Orleans team who’s having a storied season – CLICK HERE
-Butler picked up what I believe is the single most impressive win that any team has this year with their win at Villanova. Nova had not lost at home all year, and their loss to Providence at home last year was their only one in the last three years. Last night was Nova’s first loss at the Pavilion in over four years. The top of Butler’s resume is incredible. They’ve beaten Arizona and Villanova twice and now have nine wins away from home, including six true road wins. That’s certainly the resume of a solid protected seed.
-Kansas clinched at least a first place tie in the Big Twelve for the thirteenth time in thirteen years with their win over TCU last night. TCU remains on the bubble, and Kansas remains atop the Big Twelve.
-Oregon was getting blown out of the place at the beginning of their game against Cal, which was a game the Golden Bears really needed to win. Oregon came back and hit a game winning three at the buzzer to keep their first place hopes alive, as well as keep them on pace to end up as a #2 seed. Cal, on the other hand, remains squarely on the bubble and is currently on the wrong side of it.
-Louisville stayed with North Carolina for about 30 minutes before UNC built up a reasonably comfortable lead. The game doesn’t hurt Louisville at all, and it wouldn’t surprise me if they still ended up on the #2 line. North Carolina continues to look like a #1 seed.
-Syracuse beat Duke with a banked three point shot at the buzzer. This is the second year in a row that when February started I was pretty sure Syracuse was dead, and they’re once again gaining steam late in the year. If they do make the NCAA Tournament, which it’s looking like they will, they’re tough to play against for teams that aren’t familiar with them because of their defense. Duke is still in really good shape, especially with the rest of the ACC schedule and the conference tournament after that. I still think they’ll end up on the #2 or #3 line.
-Providence picked up a huge road win at Creighton, which moves them closer to the bubble, and perhaps even inside of it. I’ll be curious to see where they end up on our bracket show tonight. They have certainly improved as the season has gone alnog.
-Minnesota picked up a very impressive win against Maryland, and made what was an already good looking resume look even better.
-Tennessee lost at home to Vanderbilt which really hurt what looked like a legitimate chance to play their way inside the bubble. With that being said, let’s take a quick look at Vanderbilt. They’re 6-2 in their last eight games with wins at Tennessee, at Arkansas, and at home against Iowa State. They do have a rather dumbfounding loss to Missouri, but other than that they’ve been playing very well and beating teams that are either on the bubble or inside the bubble. Their RPI is now in the top 50, their overall schedule strength is 3rd, and their OOC SOS is #1. We have not discussed Vanderbilt all year long, but those are all earmarks of a tournament team. They have games remaining at Kentucky and at home against Florida. If they can win their next one against Mississippi State, and then pick up just one of those last two, I think the Dores are in.
-Michigan picked up a true road win against Rutgers. That’s noteworthy because it doubles the number of true road wins this team has on the season.
-And, Xavier’s tailspin continues. They’ve now lost four straight, and quite frankly haven’t looked particularly good in any of those four losses, at least for not more than a half. They have a big home game coming up against a Butler team who is smoking hot right now. If they don’t win that one, and there is a good chance that they won’t, they may be falling out of first ballot range and into the bubble range.
-Oklahoma State keeps winning, and keeps looking impressive when they win. After an 0-6 conference start they’ve now won 8 of their last 9 conference games, and 9 out of 10 overall. They ran away from Kansas State on the road last night to add yet another good road win to a profile that just keeps getting better and better.
HIGHLIGHTED GAMES
-GEORGIA AT ALABAMA (SEC). Alabama is right on the fringe of the bubble, and if they finish strong they can make the field. Every game has a pivotal feel to it and they really can’t afford to lose at home in a game like this.
-NEBRASKA AT MICHIGAN STATE (Big Ten). Michigan State is relatively safe if they hold serve, which means winning at home against non-tournament teams.
-MEMPHIS AT CINCINNATI (American). Cincinnati actually has a chance to win 30 games before the end of the conference tournament. I still don’t see them ending up as a protected seed, but they can make quite a bit of noise in the tournament.
-TOWSON AT UNC WILMINGTON (Colonial). I think UNCW has a chance of making the tournament even if they don’t win their conference tournament. I’d be disappointed if they win out and the committee doesn’t end up taking them. They may be tested today as Towson is one of the better teams in the league, and has been playing well lately.
-WISCONSIN AT OHIO STATE (Big Ten). Wisconsin is in a race for first place in the Big Ten and has a decent shot at ending up as a protected seed, but they’ll need a strong finish and a good showing in the conference tournament in order to make that happen. Picking up this win on the road would certainly help.
-UCLA AT ARIZONA STATE (Pac Twelve). UCLA appears to be a solid protected seed, and is in a three way race with Oregon and Arizona for first place in the conference.
-USC AT ARIZONA (Pac Twelve). Arizona has just one conference loss and currently has the strongest profile in the Pac Twelve. If the season ended today I think they’d be at least a #2 seed. USC is solidly in the field and has an opportunity to give their tournament resume a huge boost.
-GONZAGA AT SAN DIEGO (West Coast). Gonzaga can win their 29th game today. I’ll be surprised if they don’t win out and end up on the #1 line.
-SAINT MARY’S AT PEPPERDINE (West Coast). Saint Mary’s will end up in the top half of the bracket if they can hold serve the rest of the way.
Throwback Thursday: The 2016 Hoops HD NCAA Tournament Selection Process
For David Griggs’ News, Notes and Highlighted Games – CLICK HERE.
For Chad Sherwood’s UTR Game of the Day between New Orleans and Stephen F. Austin – CLICK HERE.
For the regular season finale of the UTR Video Podcast – CLICK HERE.
Every year since its inception, the staff members of HoopsHD (including past incarnations like CrimsonCast) gather together during Championship Week to discuss the pending NCAA Tournament. The process is threefold: 1) Select the field, 2) Seed the field, 3) Bracket the field.
The process begins earlier in the week – the first job of each staff member is to select up to 36 teams that would be in the NCAA Tournament regardless of whether or not they win their upcoming conference tournaments. (Teams that already won their conference tournaments were exempt, so conference tournament champions like Gonzaga and Northern Iowa were not included on committee member ballots). Teams that were named on at least 8 out of 10 ballots were added to the NCAA Tournament field. This is where the term first ballot comes from on our show. For other teams that did not make the initial field but were named on at least 3 ballots, they were added to the Under Consideration column on the Selection board. Below is our selection board as of Wednesday from last year:
If you look at the rest of the board, teams listed in blue already won their conference tournaments and were guaranteed entry into the NCAA Tournament. 27 teams listed in green were first-ballot teams as described above. The middle column included all other teams under consideration – teams listed in white and orange (orange teams lost in their respective conference tournaments) were included. Teams listed in red lost their conference tournaments but were not named on committee ballots. After this phase, the HoopsHD Committee had their annual pasta dinner and post-dinner ice cream.
Thursday was the first official day of deliberations for the HoopsHD Committee. Two additional teams were added to the Under Consideration board – Centenary winner Chicago State (click HERE for the Centenary Award details) and 2015-16 Team of the People Grand Canyon (click HERE for Team of the People details). Motions were made to remove teams from Under Consideration that did not have enough merit to be included in the field. (Note that teams in white still had games to play; teams in orange were eliminated from their respective conference tournaments). We then began to debate the merits of Under Consideration teams and who should be added to the at-large field. After the first wave of debates, each committee member voted for their top 8 teams to be selected. The top 8 vote-getters would then be ranked 1 through 8 by each committee member. The top 4 teams (Wisconsin, Providence, Colorado and Butler) were added to the at-large column and the bottom 4 teams “carried over” to the next wave of balloting. After more debates, each committee member individually voted on 4 more teams to be added. The top 4 vote-getters were added to the 4 carry-over teams to again be seeded 1 through 8. The next 4 teams added to the at-large pool were USC, Wichita State, Oregon State and Pittsburgh. 1 at-large spot was left open at this point, but 4 more at-large spots opened up when it became clear that the winners of the ACC, Big East, Big 12 and Pac-12 were already assured of an NCAA Tournament spot. There were also 4 more potential at-larges that could open up pending the results of conference tournaments in the Big 10, SEC, American and A-10. Below is the selection board through Thursday night:
When the committee began deliberations on Friday night, further scrubbing of the Under Consideration board took place as more results from conference tournaments were coming in. At this point, our committee began to build our master seed list. A wave of debates took place as to who the top teams would be – each individual committee member voted on their top 12 teams. (The actual NCAA Selection Committee would select 8 teams at a time, but we did 12 as a time-saving measure). The top 12 teams were seeded 1 through 12 by each individual member; the top 8 vote-getters were added to the seed list on the right-hand side of the Selection Board. Four teams carried over; our committee then debated on which 8 teams (4 by the real NCAA Committee) should be subsequently voted into the seed list. The top 8 teams (along with the 4 carryovers) were again seeded 1-12 and the top 8 vote-getters were added to the seed list. We repeated this process one more time to arrive at 24 teams on the master seed list. At that point, we went to the task of adding 4 more teams to the at-large pool; UConn, Cincinnati, Michigan and Saint Joseph’s were added to the field. We were left with 2 at-large spots to fill at the end of Friday night. Our last task was to add 8 more teams to the master seed list. Below is the selection board through Friday night:
On Saturday night, we began by scrubbing the Under Consideration column down to 8 teams plus the Centenary Award winner. This is where most of the debates took place for tonight – 3 teams were added to the at-large field – VCU, Temple and South Carolina. VCU’s inclusion opened up an at-large spot out of the A-10 – this meant that there would be 2 final teams to add to the field. They were Monmouth and a contingency pick in St. Bonaventure. The contingency arose because of the American championship – St. Bonaventure would be the last at-large if UConn won that game; Memphis would have stolen a bid had they won that game instead. The remaining teams were added to the seed list – this included contingency teams like Memphis, Little Rock and Louisiana-Monroe since the Sun Belt championship was played on Selection Sunday.
And this is where the fun began for Saturday night – committee member Joby Fortson (author of the HoopsHD Nitty Gritty Rankings – click HERE for those rankings) lobbied heavily to remove South Carolina from the field and proposed Syracuse in their stead. St. Bonaventure’s merits were also called into question at the same time. 8 votes were needed to support this motion – the motion was to rank South Carolina, Syracuse and St. Bonaventure. Syracuse was #1, St. Bona #2 and South Carolina #3. This meant that Syracuse was now in the field and that St. Bonaventure would remain as a contingency team. Our last task of Saturday night was to scrub the seed list and move teams around depending on Saturday’s results. Below is how the Selection Board looked as of Saturday:
Sunday was our final day of deliberations. A second scrubbing of the seed list was done as Sunday results began to come in. With the late starting time of the American championship, 2 contingency brackets were built based on the final seed list. This was the final bracket from our committee that took into account UConn’s win:
This was the end result of our work from last season; we will convene again 2 weeks from now to begin building this year’s NCAA Tournament bracket as well.