FanPost

Evaluating the 2017-18 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament Selection Committee

Yesterday, the NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament Selection Committee ("the Committee") unveiled the 2017-18 NCAA Tournament bracket. Courtesy of The Athletic’s Nicole Auerbach, we’ll take a look at the Committee’s "seed list"—that is, how it ranked (or "seeded") the teams, one through 68. To evaluate the Committee’s seeding, we’ll compare it to Kenneth Massey’s College Basketball Ranking Composite ("the Composite"), the Composite being without any doubt the most fair and reasonable way to rank teams.


For those unfamiliar with the Composite, it was created "to compare any set of well-developed computer generated rankings, as well as widely published national polls" and "to present the large variety of rankings in an easily accessible and understood format." The Composite currently incorporates 66 ranking systems including controlling authority such as the Pomeroy Ratings, the Sagarin Ratings, the Massey Ratings, the Baker Bradley-Terry Rankings, the ESPN Basketball Power Index, ESPN Strength of Record ratings, the Associated Press Poll, and the USA Today Coaches’ Poll, among a number of other rigorously tested and reputable systems.


The ranking systems in the Composite cover a diverse range of ranking theories from retrodictive (i.e., how well a system reflects what has actually happened—describing the past, or measuring what people commonly refer to as the team’s "resume") to predictive (i.e., how well a system predicts what is going to happen). Some systems give equal value to each game of the season and others have a recency factor. Some systems use a scoring margin-aware method and others do not factor in scoring margins. If you can think of a sound philosophy, formulae, or principles for ranking college basketball teams, in some way or another it’s almost assuredly already factored into the Composite.


Using a consensus average of all its incorporated systems, the Composite ranks every team in Division One College Basketball ordinally from number one to number 351.


So let’s take a look at how the Committee stacks up to the experts and authorities on college basketball rankings. I’ll list the teams in order of their Committee rank, and in parentheses I’ll include each team’s actual rank (i.e., its rank in the Composite. Note that I'll be using the March Fourth version of the Composite because the most recent update is not complete).

  1. Virginia (1)
  2. Villanova (2)
  3. Kansas (8)
  4. Xavier (7)
  5. North Carolina (9)
  6. Duke (3)
  7. Purdue (5)
  8. Cincinnati (4)
  9. Michigan State (6)
  10. Tennessee (13)
  11. Michigan (10)
  12. Texas Tech (14)
  13. Auburn (12)
  14. Wichita State (15)
  15. Gonzaga (11)
  16. Arizona (22)
  17. Kentucky (20)
  18. West Virginia (16)
  19. Clemson (18)
  20. Ohio State (17)
  21. Florida (23)
  22. Miami (29)
  23. Houston (21)
  24. TCU (19)
  25. Texas A&M (26)
  26. Arkansas (28)
  27. Nevada (24)
  28. Rhode Island (33)
  29. Seton Hall (25)
  30. Creighton (27)
  31. Virginia Tech (32)
  32. Missouri (38)
  33. Butler (30)
  34. Kansas State (36)
  35. Providence (61)
  36. Alabama (54)
  37. NC State (40)
  38. Florida State (34)
  39. Texas (41)
  40. Oklahoma (39)
  41. UCLA (47)
  42. St. Bonaventure (51)
  43. Arizona State (42)
  44. Syracuse (50)
  45. San Diego State (66)
  46. Loyola Chicago (46)
  47. New Mexico State (57)
  48. Davidson (68)
  49. South Dakota State (72)
  50. Murray State (63)
  51. Buffalo (70)
  52. UNCG (83)
  53. College of Charleston (103)
  54. Marshall (108)
  55. Bucknell (95)
  56. Montana (86)
  57. Wright State (127)
  58. SFA (128)
  59. Lipscomb (147)
  60. Georgia State (123)
  61. Cal State-Fullerton (168)
  62. Iona (140)
  63. UMBC (182)
  64. Penn (115)
  65. Radford (166)
  66. LIU-Brooklyn (257)
  67. NC Central (317)
  68. Texas Southern (263)

Some of the Committee's biggest and most notable blunders:

  • Passed up for at-large bids were St. Mary's (31), Baylor (37), USC (43), Penn State (44), MTSU (45), Notre Dame (48), Marquette (49), Boise State (52), Oklahoma State (53), Nebraska (55), and Maryland (56). Teams earning at-large bids included UCLA (47), Syracuse (50), St. Bonaventure (51), Alabama (54), and Providence (61). Leaving out St. Mary's for any of those at-large teams is an indefensible mistake by the Committee.
  • It mis-ranked 15 (out of 49 total) Composite Top-68 teams by at least five spots.
  • It gave Kansas (9) a one seed.
  • Penn (115) ranks higher than 11 other Tournament teams despite being a 16 seed. Note that significantly under-seeded Penn plays the above-referenced significantly over-seeded Kansas in what could (but almost certainly won't) be an entertaining first round 16/1 match-up.
Some things for Michigan State fans to wax wroth about:
  • Kansas (8), Xavier (7), and North Carolina (9) all received a higher seed than Michigan State (6). No reasonable evaluation of the 2017-2018 men's college basketball season supports this.
  • If Michigan State makes it to the Elite Eight, it'll likely be playing against Kansas in Omaha, which is a short drive up I-29 from the University of Kansas' campus in Lawrence. (That's roughly equivalent to Michigan State playing against Virginia in Chicago.)
  • Among like-seeded teams, Michigan State has the toughest likely second round match-up: TCU (19) is the highest ranked six seed, and Arizona State (42) is the highest ranked 11 seed.
  • Among like-seeded teams, Michigan State has the toughest likely third round match-up (i.e., the Sweet 16): Duke (3) is the highest ranked two seed.
  • Given the above-referenced points, Michigan State got the worst seed among Top-10 teams, got the worst draw among like-seeded teams, and got unfortunate with location.

This is a FanPost, written by a member of the TOC community. It does not represent the official positions of The Only Colors, Inc.--largely because we have no official positions.