Coaches lash out after questionable March Madness snubs
The day after the NCAA announces the 68 teams in its men’s basketball tournament, there are always a handful of schools wondering how and why they were left out of the tournament.
This year is no different, but there’s a new twist. The NCAA’s tournament selection committee added a new wrinkle to how it determines who’s in and who’s out, and more than a few people aren’t too happy about it.
If you’re wondering, for instance, how USC — a 23-win team that finished second in the Pac-12 — didn’t make the tournament but ninth-place Arizona State did, you’re not alone.
And the answer, in part, lies with something the selection committee debuted this year called the quadrant system.
For coaches who were snubbed, that system is called something unprintable.
“If all that matters is the quality of your best win or two on your schedule, then we shouldn’t even play and just set the field in December after the out-of-conference was complete,” a stunned USC coach Andy Enfield said Sunday. “It basically discredited our entire league schedule, and no matter what we or some of the other teams in our league did during the Pac-12 or the conference tournament did not, obviously, matter. …
“We had an RPI of 23 and a strength of schedule of 37. It says we played a tough schedule and won a lot of games. We also won 11 games away from home — six on the road. They were supposed to value that.”
USC wasn’t the only 20-win team to be turned away by the selection committee. St. Mary’s went 28-5 but didn’t get in. The same goes for 24-win Middle Tennessee State and 20-win Notre Dame.
But beyond the number of wins, the committee looks at two other factors: RPI, or rating percentage index, which reflects a team’s wins and losses and its strength of schedule; and this year, the quadrant system.
The quadrant system breaks down each of a team’s games into one of four quadrants, based on who they were playing and where the game was played. Here’s how the NCAA breaks down the quadrants:
Quadrant 1: Home games vs. 1-30 RPI teams; neutral-site games vs. 1-50 RPI; away games vs. 1-75 RPI.
Quadrant 2: Home games vs. 31-75 RPI; neutral-site games vs. 51-100 RPI; away games vs. 76-135 RPI.
Quadrant 3: Home games vs. 76-160 RPI; neutral-site games vs. 101-200 RPI; away games vs. 136-240 RPI.
Quadrant 4: Home games vs. 161-plus RPI; neutral-site games vs. 201-plus RPI; away games vs. 241-plus RPI.
Based on this system, a Quadrant 1 win at home against a team with an RPI of 30 is valued the same as a road win against a team with an RPI of 75. Meanwhile, losing at home to a team with an RPI of 161 is just as damaging as losing on the road to a team with an RPI of 241.
“The committee’s decision to focus on, for example, Q1 or Q2 wins, or Quadrant 4 losses, is a direct result of its desire to place greater emphasis on winning away from home, and to demonstrate how difficult it is to earn those wins,” said Dave Gavitt, the NCAA’s vice president of basketball. “A wider net is cast when you play teams on a neutral court, and an even wider one is cast when you play in a true road environment, meaning teams leaving their home arenas to play competition ranked in the 50-75 range have the opportunity to earn a Q1 win.
“Beating elite competition, regardless of where the game is played, will always be important to the committee, but these new quadrants redefine its definition of a quality win.”
So when you look at the teams that were snubbed, USC won only four of its 10 Quadrant 1 games. St. Mary’s played only three Quadrant 1 games and won two. Oklahoma State was a mere 5-12 in such contests, even though two of those wins came against Kansas.
What does the emphasis on the quadrant system mean for teams going forward?
“The committee sent a message to me that it’s going to get tougher for everybody at our level to get an at-large with this new system,” said Middle Tennessee State coach Kermit Davis, whose team had a 2-3 record in Quadrant 1. “You’ve got to be perfect. We only have a few chances, and they are usually either on the road or on a neutral court, where the Power 5 schools have six to eight opportunities at home in front of their crowd.”
Davis believes the quadrant system penalizes teams in mid-major conferences because they have fewer opportunities at Quadrant 1 wins.
“Look at the season that St. Mary’s had,” he said. “They were in the top 20 a week ago. I think people would rather watch both of us in Dayton [in the play-in game] than two Power 5 teams that finished seventh or eighth in their leagues.”
Truth and Accuracy
We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.
Advertise with The Western Journal and reach millions of highly engaged readers, while supporting our work. Advertise Today.
