2013 NCAA Tournament: How the Committee Ranked the Teams 1-68
The selection committee is inviting you to scrutinize, over-analyze and lambaste the 2013 NCAA tournament bracket. The panel is even offering its own critics extra ammunition.
Moments after the complete 68-team field was unveiled, committee chairman Mike Bobinski pulled back the curtain on the baseline his staff used to cobble together the [poorly done] tournament bracket. Naturally, the full-access tour exposed even more inconsistencies with the selection process, seedings, and pairings.
Before determining seeds and pairings teams, the committee ranked all 68 teams in the field [supposedly] according to their full bodies of work. The rankings were as follows:
- Louisville
- Kansas
- Indiana
- Gonzaga
- Miami (FL)
- Duke
- Georgetown
- Ohio St.
- New Mexico
- Florida
- Michigan St.
- Marquette
- Michigan
- Kansas St.
- Saint Louis
- Syracuse
- Oklahoma St.
- UNLV
- Wisconsin
- VCU
- Arizona
- Butler
- Memphis
- UCLA
- Creighton
- San Diego St.
- Notre Dame
- Illinois
- North Carolina
- Colorado St.
- Pittsburgh
- North Carolina St.
- Missouri
- Temple
- Wichita St.
- Colorado
- Cincinnati
- Villanova
- Iowa St.
- Oklahoma
- Minnesota
- California
- Oregon
- Belmont
- Boise St.
- St. Mary’s (CA)
- Ole Miss
- Bucknell
- La Salle
- Middle Tenn.
- Akron
- New Mexico St.
- South Dakota St.
- Montana
- Davidson
- Valparaiso
- Northwestern St.
- Harvard
- FGCU
- Pacific
- Iona
- Albany (NY)
- Western Ky.
- Southern U.
- LIU Brooklyn
- James Madison
- N.C. A&T
- Liberty
You’ll notice the days of the S-curve by ranking are long gone, as the lowest-ranked 1-seed (Gonzaga) ended up with the lowest No. 2 (Ohio State). Geographical preference takes priority in constructing the regions, which explains why the Midwest is so lopsided and West so diluted.
As if the ordering of the teams from top to bottom isn’t bad enough, some of the regional pairings derived from this list are even more objectionable (the No. 1 overall seed drawing the second-best No. 2, for example).
Welcome to March Madness — 2013 edition — where this year’s selection committee ranks somewhere below Liberty.