Women's News
Bracket Up
March 15
Final bracket projection is up now. Sorry it took so long.
February 17
This year, I had the opportunity to sit through the mock selection process put on by the NCAA women's basketball staff. It was particularly interesting for me because I was curious as to how it was different than the men's process.The women's committee views data differently than the men's committee does. The team sheets the committee looks at break down each team's season performance. Opponents are grouped by top 25 RPI, 26-50, 51-100 and 101+. There is also strength of schedule information, both for non-conference and conference, and how teams have performed at the end of the season.
Ultimately, though, this is a subjective process. There were times in the meeting where one of us might say, "I see what the numbers say, but this team is not as good as the numbers." Or vice versa.
There are also regional coaches' rankings that are sometimes referred to, and we sometimes found that the coaches of a particular region felt better or worse about a team than we did.
The actual process used to create the bracket is three-fold: select the at-large teams, rank them 1-64, and then put them in the bracket. Sometimes, the committee may go back and forth between the first two steps, but the bracketing step doesn't start until the first two steps are finished.
Selecting and ranking is done through a series of votes on computer. A seemingly never-ending series of votes. And we didn't do all the voting. We picked about 2/3 of the at-large teams, and then to speed up the process, the staff filled in the rest by RPI. We seeded about 24 teams, and then the staff filled in the rest.
Bracketing is different than I thought it would be. I thought there would be an emphasis on making sure teams play close to home to help sell tickets.
However, an attempt is made to keep teams close to home. Teams hosting the first two rounds get to play at home. Old Dominion is a 13-seed in this bracket, but is playing at home because they are a host. Regional hosts are not allowed to play at home though, so Dayton had to be shipped somewhere else.
Teams from the same conference are not supposed to be bracketed so they could meet before a regional final, unless it is unavoidable. That is very important in the men's bracketing process because of how revenue is distributed. It's not as big a deal in the women's bracketing, but they do still try to maintain that.
All in all, the meeting was very informative and hopefully, will help me do a better job of projecting the women's field.