NCAA Basketball Mock Selection Committee: A Look into the Selection Process

This past week, a few of the Bleacher Report writers got together on Google+ and simulated what the NCAA Selection Committee does every year for selecting and seeding the teams that will partake in the NCAA Tournament.

What transpired was madness that is simultaneous only with March.

It was a long and grueling few hours that were filled with debates over how to rank teams, the final at-large teams, and the computer problems that could not help but rear their ugly head and slow down the process.

After it was all completed, I can speak for the rest of the writers and myself when I say that we all gained a greater appreciation for what the NCAA Selection Committee goes through each year; all the numbers on the computer screen can certainly become a blur after looking at them for hours on end.

The final bracket is done and here is everything that went into it.

B/R Mock Selection Committee: Joshua Gleason, James Sullivan, Teddy Bailey, Matt Overing

The Committee took place on Tuesday, February 28, so all standings and résumé were taken from that date.

Conference Champions

The first thing we did was simulate the conference championships. Not many surprises occurred, but there were a few notable ones.

Arguably the biggest upset occurred in the SEC where the Florida Gators were able to get by the Vanderbilt Commodores in the semifinals and then knock off the Kentucky Wildcats.

In the Big Ten, the Michigan Wolverines and Wisconsin Badgers pulled the upsets against the Michigan State Spartans and Ohio State Buckeyes to advance to the championship game. There, Michigan picked up another huge win and the Big Ten title.

The Syracuse Orange took care of a surging Louisville Cardinals squad in the Big East Finals. After the Orange grabbed the Big East title and Kentucky lost the SEC title, Matt Overing stated that, “Syracuse should get the number one overall seed,” something all the writers agreed upon.

The other two one-seeds were determined by the winners of the ACC and Big 12, where the North Carolina Tar Heels beat their rival, the Duke Blue Devils, and the Missouri Tigers exacted some revenge on the Kansas Jayhawks to take the Big 12 title.

Here is the complete list of conference tournament champions and how a few other teams fared in their respective tournaments:

ACC—North Carolina

Duke Finals, Virginia and Florida State Semis

America East—Vermont

Atlantic-10—Temple

Saint Louis Finals, Xavier and St. Joe’s Semis

Atlantic Sun—Belmont

Big 12—Missouri

Kansas Finals, Kansas State and Baylor Semis

Big East—Syracuse

Louisville Finals, Marquette and South Florida Semis, Georgetown Quarters

Big Sky—Montana

Big South—Coastal Carolina

Big Ten—Michigan

Wisconsin Finals, Michigan State and Ohio State Semis

Big West—Long Beach State

Colonial Athletic Association—Drexel

Conference-USA—Southern Mississippi

Horizon League—Valparaiso

Ivy League—Harvard

Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference—Iona

Mid-American Conference—Ohio

MEAC—Savannah State

Missouri Valley Conference—Creighton

Wichita State Finals

Mountain West—UNLV

New Mexico Finals, San Diego State and Colorado State Semis

Northeast—LIU Brooklyn

Ohio Valley—Murray State

PAC-12—California

Washington Finals, Arizona and Oregon Semis

Patriot—Bucknell

Southern Conference—Davidson

SEC—Florida

Kentucky Finals, Vanderbilt and Alabama Semis

Southland—Texas-Arlington

Summit League—Oral Roberts

Sun Belt—Middle Tennessee State

SWAC—Mississippi Valley State

WAC—New Mexico State

WCC—BYU

Saint Mary’s Finals, Gonzaga and Loyola Marymount Semis

At-Large Teams

After we had the conference champions, we went through the process of selecting the at-large teams to make the tournament.

This is always the most controversial part of the selection process that the media constantly rips. The basis for most of the criticism comes from high-ranked RPI teams left off. People need to understand that while the RPI is looked at such as in the instance of good wins and bad losses, which is evaluated primarily on the opposing teams RPI, it is not the sole factor in determining if a team makes the tournament or not.

Of the items we mainly stressed for consideration were whether teams challenged themselves in the non-conference and how they fared in those games, their road/neutral record, and the eye test. Numbers can deceive so it is also important not to forget how a team actually looks on the court.

Surprisingly, the at-large selection process went fairly smoothly for our committee. We listened to each others' cases for teams and in the end, agreed upon the teams.

Here is each of our last four teams in:

Matthew Overing—VCU, Xavier, Texas, Arizona

James Sullivan—Xavier, Cincinnati, VCU, North Carolina State

Teddy Bailey—Xavier, Cincinnati, VCU, North Carolina State

Josh Gleason—VCU, Xavier, Cincinnati, St. Joseph’s

Everybody agreed upon VCU Rams and Xavier Musketeers, so we automatically put them into the field. We debated on the last two spots, and after much deliberation, we decided on the Cincinnati Bearcats and North Carolina State Wolfpack.

The Wolfpack received the nod because they had a solid non-conference schedule that featured a win over the Texas Longhorns. The Bearcats got in mainly because they have played quite well since ‘The Brawl’ and have fared well in Big East play.

Here are the rest of the at-large teams:

('Last Four In' are underlined)

1. Kentucky

2. Michigan State

3. Kansas

4. Duke

5. Ohio State

6. Marquette

7. Wichita State

8. Georgetown

9. Louisville

10. Baylor

11. Florida State

12. Wisconsin

13. Vanderbilt

14. Memphis

15. Indiana

16. Gonzaga

17. Alabama

18. New Mexico

19. Iowa State

20. Saint Mary’s

21. Connecticut

22. Notre Dame

23. Kansas State

24. Purdue

25. San Diego State

26. Virginia

27. West Virginia

28. Saint Louis

29. Washington

30. Miami

31. South Florida

32. Seton Hall

33. Mississippi State

34. Xavier

35. Cincinnati

36. VCU

37. North Carolina State

Last Four Out—Texas, St. Joseph’s, Oregon, Dayton

Next Four Out—Northwestern, Arizona, Colorado State, Nevada

Ranking of All the Teams

Now that the field was complete, the next step was to rank the teams. This is basically the preliminary step to seeding. It allows a structure for the seeding.

Syracuse did end up as the number one overall seed. The Duke Blue Devils, Kansas Jayhawks, Michigan State Spartans, and Michigan Wolverines took the number two seeds.

The rest of the rankings looked as such:

1.   Syracuse

2.   Kentucky

3.   North Carolina

4.   Missouri

5.   Duke

6.   Kansas

7.   Michigan State

8.   Michigan

9.   Ohio State

10.  Florida

11.  Marquette

12.  Louisville

13.  Georgetown

14.  Creighton

15.  Wichita State

16.  UNLV

17.  Murray State

18.  Baylor

19.  Temple

20.  Wisconsin

21.  Florida State

22.  BYU

23.  Vanderbilt

24.  Southern Mississippi

25.  Memphis

26.  Alabama

27.  New Mexico

28.  Kansas State

29.  Saint Mary’s

30.  Notre Dame

31.  Indiana

32.  Iowa State

33.  Connecticut

34.  Gonzaga

35.  Purdue

36.  Virginia

37.  San Diego State

38.  California

39.  Saint Louis

40.  Washington

41.  West Virginia

42.  Iona

43.  Mississippi State

44.  Long Beach State

45.  Harvard

46.  Xavier

47.  Cincinnati

48.  Seton Hall

49.  Oral Roberts

50.  Belmont

51.  Miami (Fla.)

52.  South Florida

53.  Drexel

54.  VCU

55.  North Carolina State

56.  Davidson

57.  New Mexico State

58.  Middle Tennessee State

59.  Valparaiso

60.  Ohio

61.  Bucknell

62.  Montana

63.  LIU Brooklyn

64.  Coastal Carolina

65.  Texas-Arlington

66.  Vermont

67.  Mississippi Valley State

68.  Savannah State

The Final Bracket

For a better view of the Bracket, visit this link:

https://twitter.com/#!/MisterSideline/status/176758965890318336/photo/1/large

The Bracket was a long and frustrating thing to put together.

First off, while the rankings were followed as a basis, it isn't followed strictly for seeding. There are many factors that go into the seeding.

Providing balanced regions, at least amongst the top four seeds in each region, is the first step. On top of that, two other stipulations go into the process. One of those is that the committee has a rule where the top three teams from a conference aren't supposed to be in the same region. For the most part, this was easy to avoid, except for with the Mountain West, in which the UNLV Rebels and San Diego State Aztecs were both slotted in the Midwest region.

The main reason that UNLV and San Diego State ended up in the same region was because of another sticking point with seeding—location. The west coast teams are hard to seed because most of the 2nd and 3rd Round sites are on the east coast. While teams can be placed far away from their home, the committee likes to make sure the higher seeded team is closer than the lower seeded team. It doesn't always work out that way, but the majority of the time it does.

The other condition that is strictly avoided is games in the 2nd Round that are rematches. The committee also tries to avoid rematches in the 3rd Round, and we were able to keep that to a minimum with only a few possible rematches.

For the play-in games, we tried to focus on the teams that were deserving of the seeds for the play-in games but had weaker résumés, and therefore should have to prove themselves in the 1st Round. Here were the play-in games:

South 16 Seed: Savannah State vs. Mississippi Valley State (winner plays 1 seed Syracuse)

West 13 Seed: North Carolina State vs. VCU (winner plays 4 seed Georgetown)

Midwest 16 Seed: Vermont vs. Texas-Arlington (winner plays 1 seed Missouri)

Midwest 12 Seed: Belmont vs. Seton Hall (winner plays 5 seed Vanderbilt)

Finally, here were the top four seeds in each region:

Seed	East	Midwest	South	West
1	Syracuse	Missouri	Kentucky	North Carolina
2	Michigan	Duke	Michigan State	Kansas
3	Florida	Marquette	Louisville	Ohio State
4	Wichita State	UNLV	Creighton	Georgetown

Another Great Tournament Awaits

Hopefully everybody enjoyed this little insight into how the committee process works! Maybe this will cause some to spare the NCAA Selection Committee a little criticism this year as they put in the work to make a fair bracket with great matchups.

Follow me on Twitter—@MisterSideline—for more college basketball info!