NSBB 2006 NCAA Mock Selection Committee

[bukie]

I was asked to do this again, so I'll do this again. Here's the skinny...

 

The 2006 NCAA Division I Mens Basketball Tournament is nearly upon us. Every year, a committee of various team representatives locks themselves away for a weekend and picks and seeds the teams that will play in the 65-team tournament. 34 at-large teams, and 31 automatic qualifiers are chosen and seeded using a process that takes four days, from next Thursday to Sunday.

 

Read about the process here.

 

To get a taste of what it's like in the committee, I'll run a mock committee here, where any board member that would like can have a hand in selecting and seeding the teams in the tournament. We'll follow a process similar to the committee process described above, except with a little less live discussion. :)

 

Here are the basic steps that will be taken during this process:

 

- Step 1: By Thursday, March 9, at 8:00 pm Central time, all participants will select 34 teams they think should be the at-large selections in the tournament. Don't assume any teams will be automatic qualifiers until they have automatically qualified. (For instance, put Duke on your list even if you think they'll win the conference tournament, since by this time that tournament won't be over). Any teams that appear on at least 75% of the ballots I receive will at that point be IN, no bubble questions asked. Any team referenced at least once will be added to the at-large pool (BUBBLE). All other teams will be disregarded (OUT).

 

- Step 2: Friday, March 10 - Once we have our IN teams, and our BUBBLE teams, each participant will rank the IN teams in order of strength, from 1 to however-many-teams-we-have. We will only concern ourselves with automatic qualifiers we already know for this time. We will use this to seed the top 4 lines, and assign pod locations based on those teams. Also, we will weed through the at-large pool, voting teams IN and OUT based on how many we have available.

 

- Step 3: Saturday, March 11 - During this time, if anyone thinks any team should be added to at-large discussion, or moved up into the top 4, they can make a case for that team in this thread. By 7pm Central Time, every participant should send a ranking of all the remaining unseeded teams (basically 5 seed to play-in game) with the teams still under consideration, and the one-bid leagues. At this point, any team still alive in their conference tournament is still under consideration in the rankings.

 

- Step 4: Sunday, March 12 - By this point, barring major conference tournament upsets, the field will be set, and I'll work on making sure all the NCAA rules are in place for seeding before the actual selection.

 

I know, seems like a lot of work, but mostly if you want to be involved, there'll be maybe 3-4 submissions you'll be responsible for, as well as any commentary you want to add in this thread. I'll do most of the work regarding the bracket to make sure it follows NCAA rules (no conference teams can meet in the first round, pod 1-4 seeds shouldn't have home court disadvantage in the first round, teams can't play at home).

 

If you would like to participate, these are the only things I ask:

1. Post here with your favorite team. That will count as your automatic vote for that team during this process. You don't need to include them in your at-large selections (just like an Illinois rep in the committee can't include them, they are assumed to vote for them), but if nobody else nominates them, they will still be off the board (like if your favorite team is South Carolina...that's great, but if nobody else votes them in they won't get at-large consideration).

 

2. PM me your list of 34 at-large possibilities by next Thursday at 8pm Central Time. I want to get part 1 done before I go to bed on Thursday, and it took me about 4 hours to do it last year. Don't make any assumptions about games that haven't taken place yet. Just send in who you think are the 34 teams worthy of at-large selections at the time you send it in (for example, if you think Indiana might be in if they win 2 games in the BTT, well, they haven't done that yet, so assume nothing).

3. If you want to participate, please participate in the whole thing. I'll keep posting to explain what to do next.

 

EDIT: Moving all stats/teams in into the first post so nobody has to search for it (yes, it'll make the post long).

 

RPI, Team Record, Record in last 10 games, SOS, and records vs. top 50/100/200/all RPI teams here.

 

Team efficiency statistics and tempo statistics here. These are essentially a measure of how well a team scores on a per possession basis, and how well a team prevents the opponent from scoring on a per possession basis.

 

These are the automatic bids:

AMERICA EAST - Sat., March 11, Noon EST (high RPI - Albany)

ACC - Sun., March 12, 1pm EST (high RPI - Duke)

ATLANTIC SUN - Belmont (In-Depth)

ATLANTIC 10 - Sat., March 11, 6pm EST (high RPI - Saint Joseph's)

BIG EAST - Sat., March 11, 8pm EST (high RPI - Villanova)

BIG SKY - Montana - (In-Depth)

BIG SOUTH - Winthrop (In-Depth)

BIG TEN - Sun., March 12, 3pm EST (high RPI - Ohio State)

BIG 12 - Sun., March 12, 3pm EST (high RPI - Texas)

BIG WEST - Sat., March 11, midnight EST (high RPI - Pacific)

COLONIAL - UNC Wilmington (In-Depth)

CONFERENCE USA - Sat., March 11, 11:45am EST (high RPI - Memphis)

HORIZON LEAGUE - Wisconsin Milwaukee (In-Depth)

IVY LEAGUE - Pennsylvania (In-Depth)

METRO ATLANTIC - Iona (In-Depth)

MID-AMERICAN - Sat., March 11, 7pm EST (high RPI - Kent State)

MID-CONTINENT Oral Roberts (In-Depth)

MID-EASTERN - Sat., March 11, 7:30pm EST (high RPI - Delaware State)

MISSOURI VALLEY - Southern Illinois (In-Depth)

MOUNTAIN WEST - Sat., March 11, 10pm EST (high RPI - Air Force

NORTHEAST - Monmouth (In-Depth)

OHIO VALLEY - Murray State (In-Depth)

PAC-10 - Sat., March 11, 6:15pm EST (high RPI - UCLA)

PATRIOT - Fri., March 10, 4:30pm EST (high RPI - Bucknell)

SEC - Sun., March 12, 1pm EST (high RPI - Tennessee)

SOUTHERN - Davidson (In-Depth)

SOUTHLAND - Sun., March 12, 2pm EST (high RPI - Northwestern State)

SOUTHWESTERN ATHLETIC - Sat., March 11, 8:30pm EST (high RPI - Southern)

SUN BELT - South Alabama (In-Depth)

WEST COAST - Gonzaga (In-Depth)

WESTERN ATHLETIC - Sat., March 11. 9pm EST (high RPI - Nevada)

 

There will also be 34 at-large bids, yet to be selected by the committee.

Edited March 9, 2006 by bukie

[rawaction]

I'll try it.

[vance_the_cubs_fan]

How much college basketball should I have watched to participate?

[bukie]

How much college basketball should I have watched to participate?

 

As much as you feel comfortable with. I'm of the opinion that watching too many games gives you biases that can't be fixed with statistics anyway. ;)

 

I'll post stats on eligible teams a bit later (I really should get some work done today...)

[vance_the_cubs_fan]

Count me in, then. BTW, I'm an LSU fan! Geaux Tigers!

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Since Mizzou won't be doing any dancing this year, I'm in as a Michigan St. fan.

[SouthSideRyan]

Illinois fan.

[hawkeyecub]

Hawkeye fan.

[RynoRules]

In.

 

The defending champs - UNC Tar Heels.

 

Big "ups" to my alma mater the SUNY Albany Great Danes as well (if they win their conference tourney - and they are favored - they are in).

[Flames24Rulz]

In.

 

Illinois fan

[illiniguy]

In

 

Iowa and Kansas hater.

[B]

Count me in, then. BTW, I'm an LSU fan! Geaux Tigers!

 

Me too. They would be really awesome if Bass wouldn't have went pro. He admitted to 'Big Baby' Davis that he made a mistake by entering the draft.

[hawkeyecub]

In

 

Iowa and Kansas hater.

 

Hey at least you're finally being honest.

[Mark_R]

Illinois fan who hasn't watched as much college hoops as he should have.

[CaliforniaRaisin]

In.

 

UCLA fan.

[bukie]

Ok, I said I'd be back with stats, well here we go...

 

NCAA Tournament eligible teams (teams over .500): 166

 

RPI, Team Record, Record in last 10 games, SOS, and records vs. top 50/100/200/all RPI teams here.

 

Team efficiency statistics and tempo statistics here. These are essentially a measure of how well a team scores on a per possession basis, and how well a team prevents the opponent from scoring on a per possession basis.

 

At this point, all conferences except the Ivy league are still awaiting conference tournament results, so no team has an automatic bid yet besides Pennsylvania.

 

These are the automatic bids:

AMERICA EAST

ACC

ATLANTIC SUN

ATLANTIC 10

BIG EAST

BIG SKY

BIG SOUTH

BIG TEN

BIG 12

BIG WEST

COLONIAL

CONFERENCE USA

HORIZON LEAGUE

IVY LEAGUE - Pennsylvania (Nitty Gritty)

METRO ATLANTIC

MID-AMERICAN

MID-CONTINENT

MID-EASTERN

MISSOURI VALLEY

MOUNTAIN WEST

NORTHEAST

OHIO VALLEY

PAC-10

PATRIOT

SEC

SOUTHERN

SOUTHLAND

SOUTHWESTERN ATHLETIC

SUN BELT

WEST COAST

WESTERN ATHLETIC

 

There are also 34 at large bids.

 

I am going to change what I want slightly initially. Send me the 34 teams you think should be at-large, like I asked, but then send an additional 10 teams that you think deserve consideration for at-large bids.

 

Mostly I want this because I'm not sure we'll end up with enough teams, and I don't want people to stretch their at-large field just to get teams included. I really want people to send me their 34 best teams.

 

And please judge teams on their merits, not on personal biases as much as possible.

[illiniguy]

In

 

Iowa and Kansas hater.

 

Hey at least you're finally being honest.

Actually unless we play again in the big ten tourny I am now rooting for Iowa. Go Big Ten, lets repeat last years great performance.

[NCCubFan]

Actually unless we play again in the big ten tourny I am now rooting for Indiana. Go Big Ten, lets repeat last years great performance.

Fixed. :D

[SouthSideRyan]

In addition to Penn: Belmont, Winthrop, Southern Illinois, Murray St., and Davidson have clinched bids.

[bukie]

I might move statistics and auto-qualifiers into my first post, so people don't have to keep searching through this thread to find my instructions :)

[Transmogrified Tiger]

Do you want the list of teams PMed to you Bukie, or just posted?

[bukie]

Do you want the list of teams PMed to you Bukie, or just posted?

 

Just PM it to me, so it doesn't (one way or the other) affect other posters' selections.

[SouthSideRyan]

UNC Wilmington, Iona, and Gonzaga earn auto bids.

 

Sun Belt, Mid-Con, and Horizon give away autos tomorrow.

[Mark_R]

I will get this done tomorrow night, way too much hw to do.

[SouthSideRyan]

Oral Roberts, South Alabama, and UW-Milwaukee enter the field.