The Selection Show That Changed How We View Bracketology

2019 was an important year for the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee. In the first year of the new NET rankings and with a historically weak bubble, the committee’s decisions on Selection Sunday were poised to set a precedent for future seasons. The result was a pleasant surprise for many fans – a reversal in trends of major-conference favoritism, and a reaffirmation that things like overall record and non-conference scheduling still matter.

For all the talk that was made about how the NET would be replacing the RPI, the committee didn’t seem to lean nearly as heavily on the NET rankings as it has on the RPI in the past, notably leaving out two ACC teams – NC State and Clemson – with NET rankings of 33 and 35, respectively.

While NC State’s NET ranking, overall record (22-11), and conference record (9-9 in the ACC) would normally have made the Wolfpack a slam dunk at-large candidate in the 8-10 seed range, their non-conference strength of schedule ranked a dead-last 353rd in Division I. Additionally, despite winning nine conference games, only two of those came against opponents with winning records.

NC State only beat two NCAA Tournament teams all season long – Auburn and Syracuse. The committee saw a team which beat up on poor competition but hardly did anything against quality foes, and left NC State even outside of the First Four Out.

It was a similar story for Clemson. The Tigers, who also won nine conference games, finished with a paltry 1-9 record in games against Quadrant-1 opponents. If you can’t beat a tournament team, why should you be allowed in the tournament? Despite a NET of just 73, St. John’s earned one of the last at-large spots because of their five Q-1 wins, including a regular-season sweep of Marquette and a win over Villanova.

Instead of taking teams with decent records but no quality wins, or teams with some high-quality wins but plentiful losses (17-15 Indiana, 16-16 Texas, 17-14 Creighton), the committee gave teams like VCU and Utah State, who challenged themselves in the non-conference and finished with strong overall records, 8-seeds. Belmont earned an at-large from the Ohio Valley due to a similarly challenging non-conference, good wins including a sweep of Lipscomb and a win at Murray State, and an overall strong 25-5 D-1 record.

Perhaps the biggest example of how the committee’s priorities seemed to have changed came with UNC Greensboro, a 27-6 (D-1) team from the Southern Conference. The Spartans were a team I thought was tournament-caliber but never expected to receive much consideration from the committee.

Only 8 of 195 bracketologists at bracketmatrix.com had the Spartans in their final fields, but UNCG actually was a part of the field until the night before Selection Sunday, when Oregon became a bid thief and moved UNCG to the first team out of the field.

UNCG’s only losses came to Wofford (3x), LSU, Kentucky, and Furman, a team the Spartans also beat twice. Despite best wins against Furman and East Tennessee State, without any bad losses, UNCG nearly cracked the final field, and finished above a team like TCU that was featured in 182 of 195 final brackets.

Perhaps the differences this year are a result of the new composition of the committee. A friendlier view towards mid-majors was forecasted, conveniently, by bracketforecast.com. The balance of the selection committee, normally with six members representing mid-majors and four represented power conferences, was disrupted when Creighton and Athletics Director Bruce Rasmussen moved to the Big East, moving the needle to 5-5. This coincided with a trend of more power conference teams receiving at-large bids. Now that things have swung back to 6-4 in favor of the mid-majors, these schools seem to be getting more love.

So what does this mean going forward? To make the tournament, teams will have to be more conscious of their non-conference scheduling. Quality wins are important but just as important is avoiding bad losses and finishing with a respectable record both overall and in games against top opponents. Of course, it helps if there are fewer bid thieves than we saw in 2019. This year made the tournament selection process fairer and more competitive, and will change the game moving forward.