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NCAA News Archive - 2007
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Mock Madness
Basketball writers gain appreciation for committee tasks during artificial selection
Twenty members of the United States Basketball Writers Association took 12 hours to put together a mock men’s basketball tournament field in Indianapolis February 7. The Division I Men’s Basketball Committee will deliberate through the real process March 7-11. Photo by Marcia Stubbeman/The NCAA News
It all looks so simple when viewing the three phases of selecting the 34 at-large teams into the Division I Men’s Basketball Championship: Choose the best teams, seed them and place them in the bracket.
But as 20 members of the United States Basketball Writers Association found out February 7, it’s anything but easy.
The NCAA men’s basketball committee invited reporters to participate in a mock selection of the tournament field that day to accomplish two primary goals: to add transparency to the selection process, and to demonstrate the delicate balance between a formulaic selection process and the 10 real people charged with applying it.
Two writers combined to play the role of one of the 10 members who actually sit on the Division I Men’s Basketball Committee. The room was set up the same way the suite on the 15th floor of the Westin Hotel will be on March 7-11 when the committee begins deliberations. The men’s basketball staff facilitated the session.
It was the first time a focus group actually went through the selection procedures. “It’s a human process,” said Greg Shaheen, NCAA senior vice president for basketball and business strategies. “Much of what people suppose goes on in the room just doesn’t happen.”
The session quenched reporters’ annual thirst for “being in the room” to hear the Division I Men’s Basketball Committee’s deliberations. What some perceived as a clandestine operation was exposed as “a bunch of human beings trying to do the best they can,” said Shaheen.
The exercise worked so well that the writers came away not only with a sense of how fair the basketball committee attempts to be, but also how fair the entire NCAA committee structure attempts to be since the same types of volunteer administrators compose the Association’s many other sport committees and policy panels.
In this case, writers were informed that the identical selection process is followed by the Division I Women’s Basketball Committee.
“I knew the basic structure of the basketball selection process,” said Steve Wieberg of USA Today. “It was revealing to see the layer upon layer of checking, rechecking and revoting that takes place. It was as enjoyable and enlightening as I thought it would be.”
Start of a long day
The mock selection was as close to the real thing as possible, right down to using the software committee members will have available to them. The evening was so authentic it even included the same catered dinner of pasta, chicken, meatballs, cheese-filled breadsticks and salad the committee will have for dinner March 9.
Each “committee member” was equipped with a laptop. Several monitors also were available around the rectangular table so the writers could see information provided by the men’s basketball staff. Team reports were posted on those screens so members could quickly see a side-by-side comparison of two or more teams. That allowed easy review of head-to-head matchups, common opponents and the quality of schedule a particular team has played.
As recently as 2001, the only computer used in the selection was a single dial-up connection to a laptop, where scores of conference tournament games in progress were passed along to the committee.
USBWA members heard from NCAA Executive Vice President Tom Jernstedt and Division I Men’s Basketball Committee Chair Gary Walters before they began their journey of determining the 65-team field.
Walters said his five years of committee service have been the best experience of his professional career, primarily because of the integrity of the people with whom he has served.
“When you talk to the alumni of this committee, there is a legitimate legacy of respect created,” Walters said. “They know what everyone else has gone through.”
Twelve hours later, the 20 members of the USBWA would know what Walters was talking about.
Balloting bottleneck
The ground rules included consideration of games through February 6. To add perspective, Shaheen and his staff would provide fictional scores of conference tournament games, several of which were staged upsets, such as High Point winning the Big South, Houston capturing the Conference USA crown and Evansville grabbing the Missouri Valley Conference’s automatic bid.
The writers began by selecting teams on initial ballots. Each committee member could identify up to 34 teams worthy of receiving an at-large bid. Any team receiving all but two of the eligible votes was placed into the field. For example, teams in the Southeastern Conference needed to be on seven of the possible nine ballots. The 10th member, SEC Commissioner Mike Slive, was not allowed to vote for teams in his league.
When the writers completed their first ballot, 22 teams were placed in the tournament. They learned that between 18 and 24 teams usually make the field that way, so the writers were on target.
Also on the first ballot, committee members could identify any number of teams that merit consideration for an at-large bid. In the mock selection, 54 such teams went on the at-large nomination board, also approximating the number the real committee would identify.
The next step was to select the best eight teams from that pool. After all 10 members made their selections, the top eight receiving votes were placed on a ballot. Committee members were then asked to rank them one through eight. The four teams with the fewest totals were added to the field. The four that didn’t advance were held for the next ballot.
The writers then picked eight more teams. The four receiving the most votes joined the remaining four on the next at-large ballot. Any team not advancing on two consecutive ballots was dropped back into the at-large nominee pool.
That process was repeated until 34 at-large teams were chosen.
The system invariably produced several ties. Committee members would then debate the merits of why a certain team should advance. That was an eye-opener for the writers.
“We all had an idea about what happens,” said USBWA Vice President Andy Katz of ESPN.com. “But to actually labor through it makes us realize how difficult it is to match all the teams up.”
Seeding and bracketing
The mock committee then began seeding the first 20 teams in the field. Again, each committee member selected eight teams. The top eight advanced and were ranked one through eight. The top four teams were then ranked one through four. The writers’ top seeds were UCLA, North Carolina, Florida and Wisconsin.
That continued until the mock committee completed the first five lines of the field before returning its attention to the final at-large berths. In this exercise, Alabama was the last team in. The “last team standing” intrigue won’t be revealed in March, but it was valuable for the mock committee to learn what it took to decide it.
The writers also learned why much of the discussion about teams can’t be publicly disclosed. It isn’t because the committee wants to project a secretive, boardroom image, but because it wants to protect the integrity of the process. Committee members have to trust that they can have open and honest discussion to select the best field. Public disclosure would compromise that bedrock principle. That should resonate with the writers, who now know that the closed-door policy isn’t in place to deny information as much as it is to protect its validity.
As the hours mounted, fatigue set in — sighs and yawns became more audible. Breaking ties and comparing teams’ resumes was exhausting, even in a mock format. At the same, members were energized about how the final bracket would look.
After all the teams were seeded, the bracketing process began. The committee’s top priority was to balance the bracket in each region. When the final bracket was unveiled, the mock committee began looking at it as analysts rather than as objective volunteers. That, too, was an eye-opener, since they quickly realized that the questions they were so accustomed to asking as reporters rarely were raised in their committee duties.
Only after the teams were placed in the bracket did the writers realize, for example, that seven teams from the Atlantic Coast Conference were in their field. The Pacific-10 Conference contributed six teams. Those statistics typically dominate post-selection analysis, but they took a back seat for a group simply looking for the 34 best at-large teams.
A potential second-round game also tickled their reporter intrigue when they realized Tom Izzo’s Michigan State squad could face Marquette and Tom Crean, a former Izzo assistant.
Another coincidental matchup featured North Carolina and Kansas in a potential East region final. Tar Heels’ coach Roy Williams spent 15 years running the Jayhawks’ program before returning to his alma mater for the 2003-04 season.
Reporters haven’t been shy about wondering out loud if the committee “arranges” those types of made-for-TV matchups. In 2002, for example, analysts speculated that the committee sent Texas Tech to a first-round game in Chicago on purpose so Indiana basketball fans wouldn’t have far to go to see their former coach Bob Knight guide his new team.
Now they know better. None of those “marquee” games was discussed beforehand. The writers discovered they simply had no time to deal with such frivolity. It took them an hour and 40 minutes to bracket the tournament.
The real committee completed the process in 56 minutes last year before the CBS Selection Show.
Another revelation for the mock committee was how the Rating Percentage Index factors into the process. At no time did any of the writers say a team should make the field based on its RPI. That is consistent with the real committee’s assertion that the RPI is just one of the many tools it uses to select teams.
But perhaps most revealing for the writers was the impact of the human factor.
“The one thing we don’t have a sense of is the weight of the decisions we made,” Wieberg said. “We just closed the book on probably half a dozen to a dozen teams. Those are coaches, players and fan bases that were desperate to get in the tournament regardless of where they would be seeded. To me, if I were sitting in this room, I think I would feel that.”
The real Division I Men’s Basketball Committee members would say that is why they take their responsibility so seriously. And now 20 key people who probe their deliberations for a living understand it, too.
Basketball writers gain appreciation for committee tasks during artificial selection
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By Greg Johnson
The NCAA News
The NCAA News
Twenty members of the United States Basketball Writers Association took 12 hours to put together a mock men’s basketball tournament field in Indianapolis February 7. The Division I Men’s Basketball Committee will deliberate through the real process March 7-11. Photo by Marcia Stubbeman/The NCAA News
It all looks so simple when viewing the three phases of selecting the 34 at-large teams into the Division I Men’s Basketball Championship: Choose the best teams, seed them and place them in the bracket.
But as 20 members of the United States Basketball Writers Association found out February 7, it’s anything but easy.
The NCAA men’s basketball committee invited reporters to participate in a mock selection of the tournament field that day to accomplish two primary goals: to add transparency to the selection process, and to demonstrate the delicate balance between a formulaic selection process and the 10 real people charged with applying it.
Two writers combined to play the role of one of the 10 members who actually sit on the Division I Men’s Basketball Committee. The room was set up the same way the suite on the 15th floor of the Westin Hotel will be on March 7-11 when the committee begins deliberations. The men’s basketball staff facilitated the session.
It was the first time a focus group actually went through the selection procedures. “It’s a human process,” said Greg Shaheen, NCAA senior vice president for basketball and business strategies. “Much of what people suppose goes on in the room just doesn’t happen.”
The session quenched reporters’ annual thirst for “being in the room” to hear the Division I Men’s Basketball Committee’s deliberations. What some perceived as a clandestine operation was exposed as “a bunch of human beings trying to do the best they can,” said Shaheen.
The exercise worked so well that the writers came away not only with a sense of how fair the basketball committee attempts to be, but also how fair the entire NCAA committee structure attempts to be since the same types of volunteer administrators compose the Association’s many other sport committees and policy panels.
In this case, writers were informed that the identical selection process is followed by the Division I Women’s Basketball Committee.
“I knew the basic structure of the basketball selection process,” said Steve Wieberg of USA Today. “It was revealing to see the layer upon layer of checking, rechecking and revoting that takes place. It was as enjoyable and enlightening as I thought it would be.”
Start of a long day
The mock selection was as close to the real thing as possible, right down to using the software committee members will have available to them. The evening was so authentic it even included the same catered dinner of pasta, chicken, meatballs, cheese-filled breadsticks and salad the committee will have for dinner March 9.
Each “committee member” was equipped with a laptop. Several monitors also were available around the rectangular table so the writers could see information provided by the men’s basketball staff. Team reports were posted on those screens so members could quickly see a side-by-side comparison of two or more teams. That allowed easy review of head-to-head matchups, common opponents and the quality of schedule a particular team has played.
As recently as 2001, the only computer used in the selection was a single dial-up connection to a laptop, where scores of conference tournament games in progress were passed along to the committee.
USBWA members heard from NCAA Executive Vice President Tom Jernstedt and Division I Men’s Basketball Committee Chair Gary Walters before they began their journey of determining the 65-team field.
Walters said his five years of committee service have been the best experience of his professional career, primarily because of the integrity of the people with whom he has served.
“When you talk to the alumni of this committee, there is a legitimate legacy of respect created,” Walters said. “They know what everyone else has gone through.”
Twelve hours later, the 20 members of the USBWA would know what Walters was talking about.
Balloting bottleneck
The ground rules included consideration of games through February 6. To add perspective, Shaheen and his staff would provide fictional scores of conference tournament games, several of which were staged upsets, such as High Point winning the Big South, Houston capturing the Conference USA crown and Evansville grabbing the Missouri Valley Conference’s automatic bid.
The writers began by selecting teams on initial ballots. Each committee member could identify up to 34 teams worthy of receiving an at-large bid. Any team receiving all but two of the eligible votes was placed into the field. For example, teams in the Southeastern Conference needed to be on seven of the possible nine ballots. The 10th member, SEC Commissioner Mike Slive, was not allowed to vote for teams in his league.
When the writers completed their first ballot, 22 teams were placed in the tournament. They learned that between 18 and 24 teams usually make the field that way, so the writers were on target.
Also on the first ballot, committee members could identify any number of teams that merit consideration for an at-large bid. In the mock selection, 54 such teams went on the at-large nomination board, also approximating the number the real committee would identify.
The next step was to select the best eight teams from that pool. After all 10 members made their selections, the top eight receiving votes were placed on a ballot. Committee members were then asked to rank them one through eight. The four teams with the fewest totals were added to the field. The four that didn’t advance were held for the next ballot.
The writers then picked eight more teams. The four receiving the most votes joined the remaining four on the next at-large ballot. Any team not advancing on two consecutive ballots was dropped back into the at-large nominee pool.
That process was repeated until 34 at-large teams were chosen.
The system invariably produced several ties. Committee members would then debate the merits of why a certain team should advance. That was an eye-opener for the writers.
“We all had an idea about what happens,” said USBWA Vice President Andy Katz of ESPN.com. “But to actually labor through it makes us realize how difficult it is to match all the teams up.”
Seeding and bracketing
The mock committee then began seeding the first 20 teams in the field. Again, each committee member selected eight teams. The top eight advanced and were ranked one through eight. The top four teams were then ranked one through four. The writers’ top seeds were UCLA, North Carolina, Florida and Wisconsin.
That continued until the mock committee completed the first five lines of the field before returning its attention to the final at-large berths. In this exercise, Alabama was the last team in. The “last team standing” intrigue won’t be revealed in March, but it was valuable for the mock committee to learn what it took to decide it.
The writers also learned why much of the discussion about teams can’t be publicly disclosed. It isn’t because the committee wants to project a secretive, boardroom image, but because it wants to protect the integrity of the process. Committee members have to trust that they can have open and honest discussion to select the best field. Public disclosure would compromise that bedrock principle. That should resonate with the writers, who now know that the closed-door policy isn’t in place to deny information as much as it is to protect its validity.
As the hours mounted, fatigue set in — sighs and yawns became more audible. Breaking ties and comparing teams’ resumes was exhausting, even in a mock format. At the same, members were energized about how the final bracket would look.
After all the teams were seeded, the bracketing process began. The committee’s top priority was to balance the bracket in each region. When the final bracket was unveiled, the mock committee began looking at it as analysts rather than as objective volunteers. That, too, was an eye-opener, since they quickly realized that the questions they were so accustomed to asking as reporters rarely were raised in their committee duties.
Only after the teams were placed in the bracket did the writers realize, for example, that seven teams from the Atlantic Coast Conference were in their field. The Pacific-10 Conference contributed six teams. Those statistics typically dominate post-selection analysis, but they took a back seat for a group simply looking for the 34 best at-large teams.
A potential second-round game also tickled their reporter intrigue when they realized Tom Izzo’s Michigan State squad could face Marquette and Tom Crean, a former Izzo assistant.
Another coincidental matchup featured North Carolina and Kansas in a potential East region final. Tar Heels’ coach Roy Williams spent 15 years running the Jayhawks’ program before returning to his alma mater for the 2003-04 season.
Reporters haven’t been shy about wondering out loud if the committee “arranges” those types of made-for-TV matchups. In 2002, for example, analysts speculated that the committee sent Texas Tech to a first-round game in Chicago on purpose so Indiana basketball fans wouldn’t have far to go to see their former coach Bob Knight guide his new team.
Now they know better. None of those “marquee” games was discussed beforehand. The writers discovered they simply had no time to deal with such frivolity. It took them an hour and 40 minutes to bracket the tournament.
The real committee completed the process in 56 minutes last year before the CBS Selection Show.
Another revelation for the mock committee was how the Rating Percentage Index factors into the process. At no time did any of the writers say a team should make the field based on its RPI. That is consistent with the real committee’s assertion that the RPI is just one of the many tools it uses to select teams.
But perhaps most revealing for the writers was the impact of the human factor.
“The one thing we don’t have a sense of is the weight of the decisions we made,” Wieberg said. “We just closed the book on probably half a dozen to a dozen teams. Those are coaches, players and fan bases that were desperate to get in the tournament regardless of where they would be seeded. To me, if I were sitting in this room, I think I would feel that.”
The real Division I Men’s Basketball Committee members would say that is why they take their responsibility so seriously. And now 20 key people who probe their deliberations for a living understand it, too.
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