Seton Hall and Indiana Will Be Overvalued by Selection Committee Because of 'Big Wins'

Seton Hall got a big home win over Marquette, and when added to earlier wins over Kentucky and Maryland in the non-conference, will likely be in the NCAA Tournament. I say this based on recent selections made by the committee, where they overlook flaws in a team’s overall body of work at the expense of some big wins.

The positive for Seton Hall: they are 6-4 against teams I have projected in the tournament field, including those three wins over teams likely to be on the top 5 seed lines.

The negative: They are just 11-8 in all other games, which yes, means that somehow a team has a better record against teams in the field than outside of it. They lost at home to St. Louis. They got blasted at Nebraska, a result that looked better a few months ago. They got swept by DePaul in the Big East and have at least one loss to every other team in conference but Creighton.

In Ken Pomeroy’s rankings, they are 60th. In the NET Rankings, they are 60th. In the wins above bubble measure, they are 57th. There are flaws, and the only measure in which they are inside the Top 45, generally where the at-large field ends, is by “big wins.” If they had the same record, but swept DePaul while losing in OT to Kentucky rather than winning it, and losing at Maryland, they would have no chance.

Indiana, meanwhile, is back in the tournament mix after beating Wisconsin, Michigan State, and then going to Illinois and dominating. A team that spent nearly two months going 1-12 has now won three in a row and now is a home win over Rutgers on Sunday from finishing at 17-14. They have a list of top scalps that are difficult for most teams to match: a sweep of Michigan State, a win over Wisconsin, and a blowout win over Marquette. They are now 6-9 in quadrant 1 games. Texas, who is also 16-14 and has been largely projected as an 8 or 9 seed, is 5-9 against quadrant 1. Besides Indiana, the lowest-ranked team in the NET with 6 Quad 1 wins is Maryland, who is targeted for around a 5-seed.

So whether you like it or not, I think these two teams are going to be very much in the tournament mix and it’s possible they are seeded higher than you think. Using the similar resume data by Bart Torvik, in the categories of NET (which includes the previous RPI rankings of past years), resume (which is a measure of top level record and wins), and Wins Above Bubble Rank, here are the 12 most similar teams since 2011, when the tournament expanded to 68.

Basically, these are teams that had much better “big wins” than the rest of their body of work. And over the last eight years, they’ve gotten in, and gotten in with room to spare (none were sent to Dayton, and you have to go back to 2011 for a team seeded at 11, and missing the field). The most frequent seeding was as a 9-seed even though these teams were talked about as being on the bubble.

And of the 11 that were selected into the field, they went 3-8 in the first round games, and had an average win expectation of 0.45 wins per tournament.

There is an argument out there that you can’t judge the quality of selections based on one-off results. I agree with that in individual cases, but over the course of time, you can make judgments on whether the committee rationale holds up at the bubble. You are often comparing apples to oranges at the bubble: teams from big conferences who had lots of opportunities to teams from smaller conferences with high win totals, teams who had great wins but bad losses, etc.

And I am comfortable saying that the evidence shows the selection committee in recent years overvalues the big win to the expense of the body of work or putting mid-major accomplishments in context.

I went through all teams seeded between 8 and 11 since 2011, plus any additional at-larges seeded below that, and compared their Top 50 record (the precursor to the current Quad 1 records).

Here is how these lower seeds, which represent the bottom tier of at-large selections and teams near the bubble, have performed based on what their top win totals were.

There is a pretty strong negative relationship between tournament wins and the number of top wins from this group coming in. Teams with two or fewer Top 50 wins entering the tournament had more than twice as many wins as those who had a lot of them. Meanwhile, the teams with fewer wins against the Top 50 tended to have better ratings in the RPI but worse seeding.

How does this happen? Well, we are seeing it in action. Flawed teams that rely on a few big wins to overcome inconsistency are outperformed by teams that had a better “body of work” but either played in small conferences where they did not have opportunity for big wins, or played in big conferences but happened to lose their top games while winning the others.

There have been 20 teams since 2011 selected with a RPI of 57th or worse and seeded as an at-large as an 8th seed or lower. Only four of them advanced to the second round. The majority of them had 4 or more Top 50 wins, leading to their selection despite the ranking.

As I wrote last year, I’m not sure most of the Cinderellas of the last decade would be selected under the current mentality. We just saw Loyola-Chicago go on a compelling Final Four run, and I’m not sure they would have gotten an at-large if they had not won the MVC Tournament.

I will be projecting Seton Hall and Indiana in my field, but it does not mean I agree that it is what should be. I would put teams like Belmont and Lipscomb in the field instead.