Some of you bubble watchers might find this NCAA publication interesting. These are the "Team Sheets" that the NCAA gives to the Selection Committee members. These are the actual, official data sheets that the Selection Committee will be using to select teams in a couple weeks. The members will have their own personal knowledge of teams, of course, but it's interesting that the NCAA thinks these sheets contain everything the committee needs to know.
fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/MBB_RPI/MBBTeam.pdf
Notice what information is not in these sheets. The committee no longer considers recent performance (they used to look at the last 12 games, but no longer). And there's nothing in the sheets about key injuries, or the timing of wins or losses. Also notice that the good wins and bad losses are specified in terms of the opponent's current RPI, not their RPI at the time of the game.
And here's another report -- the official NCAA "NItty Gritty" RPI report which contains an abbreviated set of the same information:
http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/MBB_RPI/MBBNG.pdf
There are 18 likely conference winners ranked worse than 50 and in all but one or two cases, those teams have no chance at an at-large bid if they lose in their conference tournament. Being generous, let's say a few conference upsets will result in 20 teams ranked worse than 50 getting into the field. That leaves 48 slots -- 14 for conference winners and 34 at-large bids. If you just went by RPI then 48 and below would get in. Of course these rankings will change over the next couple weeks, and if we do our job we should make it.
fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/MBB_RPI/MBBTeam.pdf
Notice what information is not in these sheets. The committee no longer considers recent performance (they used to look at the last 12 games, but no longer). And there's nothing in the sheets about key injuries, or the timing of wins or losses. Also notice that the good wins and bad losses are specified in terms of the opponent's current RPI, not their RPI at the time of the game.
And here's another report -- the official NCAA "NItty Gritty" RPI report which contains an abbreviated set of the same information:
http://fs.ncaa.org/Docs/stats/MBB_RPI/MBBNG.pdf
There are 18 likely conference winners ranked worse than 50 and in all but one or two cases, those teams have no chance at an at-large bid if they lose in their conference tournament. Being generous, let's say a few conference upsets will result in 20 teams ranked worse than 50 getting into the field. That leaves 48 slots -- 14 for conference winners and 34 at-large bids. If you just went by RPI then 48 and below would get in. Of course these rankings will change over the next couple weeks, and if we do our job we should make it.
