With Selection Sunday mere hours away, college basketball fans everywhere are anticipating the announcement of the 68 teams that will make up this year's NCAA tournament field. Who will get the No. 1 seeds, which bubble teams will make the Dance, and who will be disappointed that they were left out of the most anticipated postseason event in sports?
To answer questions about who's likely to get in and where they are likely to be seeded, I'll refer you to ESPN Bracketologist Joe Lunardi, who predicts what bracket the NCAA selection committee will come up with by Sunday evening.
But for now, let's imagine an alternate world in which there is no subjective element to the tournament selections -- one in which the 68 teams are selected based on the rules set up and objective metrics of team performance. We've been using BPI to measure the overall merit of teams for the past few weeks, taking into account each team's results, strength of schedule, scoring margin and whether any key players were missing for either team in each game.
As a complete measure of a team's tournament résumé, BPI could be used to set the tournament field of 68. Yes, we still allow 31 spots for automatic qualifiers, but then the 37 teams with the next-highest BPI are selected as at-large teams. Moreover, BPI can then be used to rank the 68 tournament teams from top to bottom -- which is basically what the NCAA selection committee does before placing teams into the bracket.
As of the results and BPI rankings through Friday's games, below is what such a field would look like. This includes teams that have already clinched automatic bids (in all caps). For bids still up for grabs, this assumes the team with the highest BPI still alive in each conference tournament wins that conference's automatic bid (all caps with asterisk). Teams are listed left to right on each seed line from higher to lower BPI.
Note: Bids are accurate as of Saturday afternoon.
Comparing this "BPI-determined field" to Lunardi's latest projected bracket allows us to see some interesting distinctions about certain teams. This is not to disparage Joe's work in any way -- again, he is trying to project what the NCAA selection committee will do. Our analysis here is intended to show how the selection committee's choices might look differently if they went strictly off of BPI.
No. 1 seeds
BPI agrees with three of the four No. 1 seeds in the Kentucky Wildcats (duh), Syracuse Orange and North Carolina Tar Heels. According to BPI, Kansas lost its No. 1 seed when it fell to Baylor in the Big 12 semifinals Friday night, but it looks like the Jayhawks are still expected to be on the top line. According to BPI, Ohio State should be a No. 1 seed over Kansas.
That being said, teams No. 3-6 are fairly tightly packed in the rankings. So if the Michigan State Spartans were to win the Big Ten tourney, they might move up to the top line.
But for now, BPI believes Thad Matta's team is deserving of a No. 1 seed. If the Buckeyes are able to beat Michigan and either Michigan State or Wisconsin in the Big Ten title game, we'll have to see whether that's enough for the committee to move them back up to No. 1 seed status.
Bubble teams
As of right now, Lunardi's "Last Four In" are Texas, North Carolina State, Mississippi State and Seton Hall. BPI agrees that the Longhorns should be in -- though it has them way in front of the bubble, seeded as high as seventh -- and also has the Wolfpack and Pirates squeaking into the field.
If the committee chooses Mississippi State, it would be questionable at best -- the Bulldogs are 65th and solidly out of the tournament, according to BPI. The Bulldogs have some nice wins but also some poor losses, having lost seven games to teams outside the top 68 in BPI.
Looking at it the other way, BPI's "Last Four In" would be Northwestern, Seton Hall, Xavier and Iona. Lunardi has Seton Hall and Xavier in the tournament and Iona in the "Next Four Out" category. Northwestern is apparently "off the bubble" entirely, but BPI sees it as having a tournament-worthy résumé -- the Wildcats have the seventh-toughest schedule in the country, wins over Michigan State and fellow bubble team Seton Hall, no bad losses, and lots of competitive games against highly ranked teams.
Here are some more extreme differences among teams that BPI has in or out of the field differently from Lunardi (who, again, bases his predictions based on how the selection committee will likely decide):
• BPI has the Miami (FL) Hurricanes solidly in with a 10 seed, while Lunardi has them among his "Next Four Out."
• Lunardi's projections have the South Florida Bulls (64th in BPI) and Colorado State Rams (69th in BPI) as solidly in at the moment; BPI has them as definitely out with no games remaining.
- Finally, the Notre Dame issue. After their blowout loss to the Louisville Cardinals on Friday night, the Fighting Irish rank 61st in BPI and should be in the "Next Four Out" category by that measure. Strangely, they are currently projected to be seeded on the No. 6 line, as perception has them as one of the better teams in the country.
Overseeded and underseeded teams
We already mentioned Texas as a team currently projected to make the tournament but seeded way too low according to BPI. Here are a couple of other teams that are either overseeded or underseeded in the projections compared to where BPI would put them.
We hope the tournament committee looks at the entire body of work for these teams objectively when deciding how they should be seeded Sunday. But if not, well, just know that a 3-versus-14 Michigan-Belmont first-round matchup may not be nearly as lopsided as it appears.
Alok Pattani is an analytics specialist in the ESPN Stats & Information Group. His ESPN archives can be viewed here.