Maryland, Pac-12 the big winners in selection committee’s first reveal
There’s still a lot of basketball to be played, but with the NCAA tournament selection committee’s first reveal of its top 16 seeds Monday, we have our first official look of what the top quarter of the NCAA tournament field could look like.
Monday’s reveal is significant, despite the fact we have five weeks remaining in the regular season. In each of the past two years, three of the four No. 1 seeds in the first reveal were on the top line come tournament time, and 14 of the 16 teams in the initial reveal wound up hosting when the bracket was released on Selection Monday. The top 16 teams host first- and second-round games.
But as with any inside look into decisions made by any committee, there are always questions and curiosities.
Most expected the Terrapins to be here when preseason rankings were released, but do they really deserve a No. 2 seed to this point? Maryland seemed to struggle with chemistry early in the season and suffered losses to South Carolina, NC State and Northwestern. Only recently have the Terps established themselves as a team to beat in the Big Ten, winning six consecutive games to remain in second place. Their RPI has shot up in the past three weeks. They were 24th on Jan. 13 but are now ninth.
Big Ten teams did a good, strategic job of scheduling out of conference. That has helped boost the conference’s RPI (second overall to the Pac-12) and its individual teams (nine are in the top 60). So the RPI gets a boost whenever any of those nine teams play each other. Maryland, a No. 4 seed in ESPN.com’s projection Monday morning, has certainly benefited in recent weeks.
The biggest curiosity comes when the Terps’ résumé is compared to another team in the Big Ten: Iowa, which is No. 15 and a No. 4 seed in Monday’s reveal. The committee doesn’t make team-by-team comparisons in its process, instead analyzing and voting on teams in groups. But it’s worth noting that their résumés are similar — Iowa’s is actually better — but the Terps and Hawkeyes are separated by a sizable seven spots and two seed lines.
The Hawkeyes have one more win than Maryland, played a better nonconference schedule (Maryland’s is rated 92nd, Iowa’s is 53rd), has a better record against the RPI top 50 and beat the Terrapins head-to-head.
Iowa could be a victim of recent circumstance. Maryland has won those six in a row and Iowa suffered its first loss in 10 games on Sunday. Given the seasons each team has had to date, that might be the best explanation as to why such a discrepancy in their placement exists.
Recent results also could help explain the Wildcats landing as high as No. 13. While Arizona has had a tremendous season and has exceeded expectations that were already high for last year’s WNIT champions, the Wildcats’ 26-point win over then-No. 8 UCLA on Friday seems to have elevated them higher than the résumé and past history would suggest.
Arizona’s RPI of 27 is by far the worst of any team in the top 16, exceeding that of teams such as Indiana (14), Texas A&M (18) and Florida State (23). DePaul, which was the committee’s 14th overall team, had the next worse at 20. What’s more surprising is that historically, the committee rarely rewards teams with such a weak nonconference schedule. The Wildcats’ played eight teams outside the RPI top 200 in November and December, and their overall ranking is 337 out of 351 Division I schools.
Scheduling has often been something committees have pointed to as a reason for a school’s lower-than-expected seed.
So if there’s one big takeaway from this reveal, it’s that the committee, with its placement of Arizona and Maryland, isn’t looking as discerningly at nonconference schedule strength.
With the possible exception of Arizona, this isn’t surprising. Most observers would view the Pac-12 as the best conference in the country, and the RPI rankings back that up.
In the preseason we wrote about the prospects of the Pac-12 having three No. 1 seeds or getting multiple teams to the Final Four. Three No. 1 seeds from the conference seems highly unlikely now with the better-than-expected seasons from South Carolina and Louisville, but with some help, and the right results within the conference the rest of the way, Stanford could join Oregon on the top line.
The Pac-12 has lived up to the lofty expectations, and the conference’s quality is reflected in this reveal. With five teams hosting, that creates a greater possibility that the Sweet 16 is also dominated by a Pac-12 presence.
Last year’s initial reveal took criticism for some imbalance. The Albany Regional — with Mississippi State and UConn as the top two seeds — was significantly weaker than the Dallas Regional that featured Baylor and Notre Dame based on the 1-16 ranking the committee provided. The explanation? To accommodate more favorable geographical placement. That wasn’t the case this time around.
The regions are well-balanced and some geographical considerations don’t seem to be as prominent. For instance, No. 3 seed Gonzaga was placed in Dallas instead of Portland, and Mississippi State also is in Portland. Flipping them would have been better for potential travel for those two schools, but would have once again made the Dallas Regional the most difficult by a sizable margin. Arizona is also in Dallas, putting three West Coast teams (Stanford is the other) in that region.
Five Pac-12 teams and Gonzaga in the top 16 will necessitate more travel than a typical bracket might have. That is something else to look at on Selection Monday. More teams seeded 5-14 will likely have to travel greater distances for the opening rounds if six hosts are west of the Rockies, since only five other conferences in the country also that far west.