Final 4 will go to the First Four
Selection Sunday Math, Scrubbing, and Will Sunday Tourneys change seeding greatly
I have enjoyed this Championships Week Chat between Andy Katz and Dan Gavitt
Not just because you find out all about Scrubbing and all these other fancy bracketology terms but most importantly you get told the math going on the room and what is going on in the room.
On Saturday morning Dan Gavitt told Andy Katz the Committee had voted in 35 at large teams. That would leave 1 at large bid for the committee to sort out but as with most years - usually the 7 multi-bid conferences* (Big Ten, SEC, ACC, Big East, Big 12, Pac 12, Mountain West) play their title games on Saturday night and Sunday afternoon and release 6 or 7 bids back to the committee when their conference tournament champ likely would have gotten an at large bid gets an automatic bid.
Doing some quick math you can see even though the NCAA Tournament committee only hands out 36 at-large bids because of the automatic bids going to teams who deserved an at-large bids but the committee can end up give out bids via automatic and at-large bids to usually the top 45 teams in the country whens some at-large teams get automatic bids.
In 2024 this did not happen. According to - the Top 10 Conferences by NET (stats courtesy of WarrenNolan.com) - only ONE of them had their regular season champ who double as their conference tournament champ and that was defending National Champ UCONN.
The other 3 conferences: Big 12, Big Ten, SEC were the three strongest by NET and featured conference finals that included teams that would have gotten at-large bids so they were NO bid thieves from those conferences… thereby 4 more at-large bids returned to the committee.
Well a funny thing happened on the way for the other 6 top conferences to return to their at-large bid to the bubble.. They DID NOT
ACC’s #10 NC State won the ACC tournament by defeating #1 North Carolina even though they finished the game with 3 injured guards just trying to survive the last couple of minutes. NC State became the first ever team to win 5 games in 5 days in the ACC tournament and won their first ACC tournament in over 40 plus years. NC State won 4 straight games beating teams with a NET ranking inside the Top 100 (Syracuse, Duke, Virginia, North Carolina). This was after the Wolfpack won only 4 games all regular season against a team with a NET ranking inside the top 100 all season long. The 4 teams NC State who were higher seeds - the Wolfpack had gone 1-6 against during the regular season as both Syracuse and North Carolina had beat them twice during regular season .
NC STATE WOLFPACK: BID EARNER#1
In the final Pac 12 Championship #4 Oregon Ducks followed up an upset of #1 Arizona by beating #3 Colorado. The Oregon Ducks had been 1-5 against UCLA, Arizona, and Colorado in the regular season only to win 3 straight games against them in the Pac 12 tournament to win the automatic bid. Dana Altman made his 9th NCAA Tournament as the Head Coach of Oregon (The Ducks also ran the table to get an automatic bid in 2019). Stat to keep in mind when filling out your bracket- Oregon Ducks when coached by Dana Altman are 8-0 in 1st round of tournament and advanced to the Sweet 16 the last two NCAA tournaments they were a double digit seed (2019, 2021) which they will likely be in the 2024 NCAA Tournament.
OREGON DUCKS: BID EARNER #2
The Mountain West conference had never gotten 6 teams in the NCAA Tournament but that should all change in 2024. #6 New Mexico ran through the Mountain West conference winning 4 games in 4 days in Las Vegas. New Mexico was outside the bubble as the Lobos went 4-6 since January 31 including a loss at home vs Air Force (#NET 269). New Mexico ran through the Mountain West conference defeating 4 teams that beat them this year (Air Force, Boise State, Colorado State, San Diego State) to earn another bid for Mountain West.
NEW MEXICO LOBOS: BID EARNER #3
Atlantic 10 conference gave the top 4 teams in the leagues a bye including #3 Dayton who had built a resume worthy of an at-large bid. Well the top 4 seeds thought a bye meant not showing up in Brooklyn so A-10 and Duquense who defeated Dayton won their first 1st NCAA bid since 1977. The father of Duquense coach Keith Dambrot played for Duquense when they went to the Elite Eight in 1952 and Dambrot left Akron (where he coached Lebron James in high school before becoming Akron’s head coach) to return his father’s alma mater to the Big Dance.
DUQUENSE DUKES: BID EARNER #3
The AAC conference added new member 2023 Final Four finalist Florida Atlantic trying to run it back in 2024. Preseason favorite Florida Atlantic put together a tough out of conference schedule beating Arizona in 2OT and beating Texas A&M, Virginia Tech, Butler, and Charleston. But a funny thing happened on FAU’s attempt to the AAC Conference title they faced #11 Temple a team that has been investigated for point shaving this year and lost when they failed to get off a shot on their last possession. Temple had lost ten straight league games from January to February before defeating FAU to win their 5th AAC game in 7 days beating FAU. In other semifinal USF Bulls which won the regular season lost to UAB Blazers. UAB Blazers which lead Temple at halftime could enter the NCAA Tournament with a 2-3 against other teams in the field beating Drake, FAU (at home), and almost upsetting Clemson in November when they had a 9 point lead with 7 minutes left. Temple is looking to become the 20th team with a losing record to make the NCAA tournament. Since the opening round game was added in 2001 - 10 of the teams with losing record have been sent to the play-in game/First Four game. The team with the losing record is 9-1 in that game with the only loss coming in 2023 when Texas Southern lost to Fairleigh Dickinson (AAC Final, 315 PMET, ESPN)
UAB BLAZERS OR TEMPLE OWLS : BID EARNER #5
Add to that Missouri Valley where Drake Bulldogs win over regular season champ Indiana State Sycamores put a very strong mid major champ in with the bubble teams possibly making one less bid available if Indiana State makes the NCAA Tournament (possible bid stealer #6: Drake Bulldogs)
The committee had five or six less AT LARGE bids to give teams and instead of 13 bubble teams in consideration for 10 bubble spots - 13 bubble teams are in consideration for the 4 spots so the LAST FOUR are going to FIRST FOUR in Dayton.
With six bids earned by bid thieves what will happen is the last 4 teams in field will head to the First Four in other years they would have likely been 10 seeds. Brackeologists ESPN’s Joe Lunardi and CBS Sports’ Jerry Palm now has his 2 First Four games being played for a ten seed- something that has never happened in NCAA Tournament history since they expanded to 68 teams. Others like Rocco Miller (Field of 68) and Mike DeCourcy (Fox Sports) might follow suit when they update their bracket today.
What will the committee do? They working into Sunday morning
NCAA Director of Media Coordination/Statistics David Worlock wrote on X
“Been doing this since 2006. It's never been this hard for the committee, not only because of how close so many of these teams are, but because of the abundance of bid thieves which have knocked teams out. Going on midnight but the work continues. That's why they call it Madness”
The simplest NET Ranking may be the factor that helps the Committee sorts out the best 4 by NET even after looking and debating other key factors
Best NET rankings of the teams on the bubble are Michigan State (#24), Colorado(#25), Indiana State (#29), and St. John’s (#32)
All four of these teams have a NET better than the previous best NET left out of the field NC State 2019 (#33) and in the case of Michigan State and Colorado they are Top 25 teams according to NET. The inclusion of Indiana State could come as a surprise to a lot of bracketologists who were also shocked by the inclusion of Nevada 2023 and Wyoming 2022 in the previous two years. Colorado and Indiana State also are benefitted from missing some of their best players in their worst losses as Colorado missed NBA Lottery pick and Diaper Dandy Cody Williams in their losses to Arizona (by 47 pts) and Arizona State (NET #134).
Are the last 4 teams I would pick? Likely no. I would factor in more big wins (WHO DID THE TEAM BEAT?) and there is a chance the NCAA selection committee takes one or two teams from that category and splits the Final Four in the field between these two matrixes (NET, best wins) . Out of the four teams listed above with the best NET that would favor Michigan State and Colorado having 4 wins each against the final projected field but might leave Indiana State (1 win) and surprisingly Saint John’s (1 win, 5 wins over bubble teams also considered including Providence and Seton Hall) OUT.
Teams that would benefit from big wins would be Texas A&M, Seton Hall, Providence, Pittsburgh, Oklahoma, and Virginia. Texas A&M with a strong non conference SOS might have the case for inclusion but there is a chance they are left out of the field for the second time in three years when they likely deserve a bid because of who they beat. A&M beat Iowa State, Tennessee, and Kentucky twice but the committee could blame A&M’s four Q3 losses which include being swept this season by Arkansas and losing at Vanderbilt - 2 of 3 worst teams in the SEC on why they should be left out. Seton Hall has a big win at home over UCONN and were one of three teams (Creighton, North Carolina) to beat the likely #1 overall seed tournament. But the committee could cite Seton Hall - Big East tournament QF loss to St. John’s (even though Seton Hall beat them two other times this season) and note UCONN’s star center Donovan Clingan missed the second half of their win over UCONN as a reason for Seton Halls 15 point win. Injuries could keep Providence out as well as they the Friars have won about 50% after losing star player Bryce Hopkins for the season. Also marquee wins over Marquette and Wisconsin happened when Hopkins was in the lineup. And finally Pittsburgh is one of the three teams (Arizona, North Carolina) to win at Duke this year - one of the hardest places to play in college basketball but a bad loss to a team that 0-18 SEC Team Missouri at home and a weak non conference SOS (one of the worst 20 in the country) will likely have the Panthers headed to NIT. The Kansas State Wildcats also had a really interesting profile with wins over 5 NCAA Tournament teams (Iowa St, Baylor, BYU, Kansas, Texas) and 2 bubble teams (Providence, Villanova) even though they had a low NET of 71. In a normal tournament cycle without so many bid stealers I do think Kansas State may have surprised some bracketologists and made the field. Fellow Big 12 team Oklahoma might be left out because of a weak Q1 win record (4-12) and weak non conference SOS (#271) despite two wins over likely Top 20 team in the projected field (Iowa State, BYU). I do think because of all the chatter about the Big 12 and their weak non Conference SOS - the committee can and should keep a Big 12 team out like TCU or Oklahoma and likely keep Iowa State from a #1 seed for same reason. Virginia’s best asset for inclusion would be wins over Florida, at Clemson, and a win at home over bubble team Texas A&M. Likely the OT loss to NC State doomed Virginia but more importantly playing Boston College and NC State in back to back games instead of Clemson ( a team UVA beat at Clemson) and Duke in the ACC tournament hurt Virginia’s NET ranking dropping it down to #55.
Here is Updated Bracketology before Selection Sunday (6 PMET, CBS)
Scrubbing and Voting
The committee is very transparent and I love that but sometimes when you are that transparent you can see some of it flaws.
First and foremost the committee votes in every member. The Committee votes in the teams so when they gave updates of 19 at large teams on Wednesday night, followed by 23 teams on Thursday morning, and 35 at large teams by Friday night there is a guess work on who these teams might have been.
In terms of the teams like FAU, TCU, Mississippi State, and Northwestern they were likely voted in the field before the committee looked at their resumes vs the Final Four teams included given how the bids worked out.
Things like a weak non conference schedules for TCU and Northwestern, bad losses for FAU (which they added another yesterday when they lost to Temple), Mississippi State (Q4 loss to Southern), and Northwestern (Q4 loss to #297 Chicago State at their home court) were likely ignored .
Because of this process - fan bases will be annoyed - If a team like Pittsburgh is left out for a weak non conference schedule and 2 Q3 losses (Syracuse and Missouri at home)- the Pittsburgh Panthers faithful fan look at their tournament resume vs Northwestern’s tournament resumes and says WAIT A MOMENTUM we had a better NET ranking than Northwestern (40 to 53) , similarly low non Conf SOS (343 to 329), and Pitt’s big wins came on the road (at Duke, at Virginia) while Northwestern’s big wins came at home (Purdue, Illinois, Dayton, Michigan State). This point is fair but part of the reason why teams like Mississippi State, TCU, and Northwestern were likely voted in by Friday because they had a significant amount of wins against the field or teams under consideration (bubble teams).
If the committee does scrub (compare team vs team) an interesting breakdown might actually be FAU vs Indiana State and you can see it is very close and could be Indiana State’s case to get in. However because of the way voting and scrubbing takes place they might never be scrubbed together (looked at side-to-side). FAU has a slight advantage but Indiana State has a few caveats - they beat Toledo a team that won MAC regular season title but lost in conference tourney (FAU has 2 regular season wins over teams who got auto bids) and some of Indiana State’s worst losses were without a star player. I currently think the committee still finds a way to get in Indiana State and an intriguing way would be a First Four game on Tuesday night that would be a rematch of the 1979 NCAA Championships- Magic vs Bird - Michigan State vs Indiana State
Scrubbing also affects. It explains why this year the committee keeps on saying we will be watching the games on Sunday for seeding but it explains how last year how Texas A&M and Penn State (teams that had made great runs to SEC and Big Ten Championships games) squared off in a 7 vs 10 matchup.
This year I am checking out the seeding of 5-6 lines where you could see BYU, Clemson, and South Carolina who all lost in the QFs or earlier in their conference tournaments vs Florida, Wisconsin, Saint Mary’s who advanced to the finals or won the finals of their conference tournament. The former 3 team were likely voted in the field first based on their resumes on Wednesday but will the committee value the conference tournament runs of the latter 3 teams and place them higher on the seed list.
Also there will be much debate about Auburn (SEC Champ) and Kentucky for #3 seed or a #4 seed. I think Kentucky won the H2H matchup by 11 points at Auburn and should get the nod unless the committee wants to say yes Joe Lunardi we were watching the SEC Championship
Conference Tournament Wrap-Up
In each one of the 5 Conference Tournaments on Sunday - the Regular Season Champion has been knocked out - Some Quick stats
11 of 32 Regular Season Championships won their conference tourney
21 Regular Season Championships lost in their Conference Tourney but only 4 of the 21 teams conference tournament finals (North Carolina, Houston, Indiana State, Little Rock)
6 Conferences (MAC, MEAC, MVC, OVC, Sun Belt, Ivy) where the regular season champ ( Toledo, Norfolk State, Indiana State, Little Rock, App State, Princeton) did not win..the preseason favorite (Akron, Howard, Drake, Morehead State, James Madison, Yale) won the conference tourney championship. Chalk this up to in a one bid league - teams that might have faltered in league play came through in the survive and advance tournament format on the strength of returning players and preseason player of the year picks. With Yale’s win today - 22 of the 32 preseason conference favorites will make the NCAA tournament.
Looking ahead 12 of these 21 conference champs who lost likely will make the NCAA or NIT tournaments and likely would have been included in an expanded tournament to 96 teams and the biggest benefactors would have been 6 more mid major teams to the NCAA Tournament.
Regular Season Champs to get At Large Bid (6): Purdue, Houston, North Carolina, Tennessee, Arizona, Utah State
Regular Season Champ in Consideration for NCAA At Large Bid (1); Indiana State
Regular Season Champs to get NIT Bid or could be in consderation for (5): South Florida, Richmond, UC Irvine, Princeton, App State
Regular Season Champs who would have normally been invited to NIT but not this year (9): Eastern Kentucky, Eastern Washington, High Point, Sam Houston, Quinnipiac, Toledo, Norfolk State, CCSU, Little Rock
Just note on this group of 9 teams - High Point was the only one to not come from a bottom 10 conference according to conference NET and 3 of the teams (High Point, Eastern Kentucky, and CCSU) were defeated on their home court not a neutral court.