Bracketology: Wins and losses should still matter to Selection Committee

NEW YORK, NY - MARCH 8: Led by committee chairman Mark Hollis (3rd from L), the NCAA Basketball Tournament Selection Committee meets on Wednesday afternoon, March 8, 2017 in New York City. The committee is gathered in New York to begin the five-day process of selecting and seeding the field of 68 teams for the NCAA MenÕs Basketball Tournament. The final bracket will be released on Sunday evening following the completion of conference tournaments. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) /

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NEW YORK, NY – MARCH 8: The NCAA Basketball Tournament Selection Committee meets on Wednesday afternoon, March 8, 2017 in New York City. The committee is gathered in New York to begin the five-day process of selecting and seeding the field of 68 teams for the NCAA MenÕs Basketball Tournament. The final bracket will be released on Sunday evening following the completion of conference tournaments. (Photo by Drew Angerer/Getty Images) /

Adding strength of schedule and revealing the teams

To finish out the profile of our four teams, we will look at something that measures their strength of schedule, because who a team plays is also important. The strength of schedule measures the difficulty of a team’s schedule using the winning percentage of a team’s opponents. Strength of schedule is a number that the committee has held its hat on in the past as a reason of keeping certain teams out of the tournament.

One thing to keep in mind, however, is that roughly 2/3 of a team’s schedule is already spoken for with their conference schedule, teams can only control the non-conference portion of their schedule, and because of that, teams have two strength of schedule numbers, an overall SOS and a non-conference SOS.

Here are the profiles of our four teams with the addition of their strength of schedule rankings and their non-conference SOS in parentheses.

Team A: (17-9 (7-8 in conference) NET: 51 Quad 1: 3-7 (1-0) Quad 2: 5-2 (2-1) SOS: 61 (184)

Team B: 22-5 (11-4 in conference) NET: 44 Quad 1: 1-4 (1-1) Quad 2: 3-0 (1-0) SOS: 237 (288)

Team C: 15-10 (5-7 in conference) NET: 41 Quad 1: 1-7 (0-1) Quad 2: 3-3 (2-2) SOS: 43 (130)

Team D: 21-4 (12-2 in conference) NET: 59 Quad 1: 2-1 (1-1) Quad 2: 3-1 (2-0) SOS: 210 (77)

Now that there is a full profile for the teams, how many times has your opinion changed as to which two teams deserve the two at-large bids?

These are just four of the factors that the committee and bracketologists alike use when trying to select and bracket the field for the NCAA Tournament. While these changes and analytic metrics are a step in the right direction, it is easy to see how wins and losses can get lost or forgotten in the matrix of numbers and rankings.

So, which four teams were a part of this experiment? Here are the four teams with all their information, how do you feel about the choices made along the way?

Team A: (17-9 (7-8 in conference) NET: 51 Quad 1: 3-7 (1-0) Quad 2: 5-2 (2-1) SOS: 61 (184) Minnesota

Team B: 22-5 (11-4 in conference) NET: 44 Quad 1: 1-4 (1-1) Quad 2: 3-0 (1-0) SOS: 237 (288) Furman

Team C: 15-10 (5-7 in conference) NET: 41 Quad 1: 1-7 (0-1) Quad 2: 3-3 (2-2) SOS: 43 (130) Clemson

Team D: 21-4 (12-2 in conference) NET: 59 Quad 1: 2-1 (1-1) Quad 2: 3-1 (2-0) SOS: 210 (77) Belmont

While more information is good, there becomes a point where all of the information in a subjective process becomes too much and the most fundamental numbers get lost.

Next. Top NCAA Tournament upsets since 2000. dark

Yes, some teams are better than others, it just depends on which factors are favored, but in the end, winning games should matter.

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