Well, the NCAA just announced this year’s NCAA Tournament and I hit it on the button.
For an explanation as to how I came about with the bracket please refer to last night’s Final Bracketology.
Just to follow up on a few points that have been floating around in regards to why and some answers to questions.
Five Team Rule?
Some people mentioned that they could enforce the five-team rule, which says that the committee can keep intra-conference matchups in the first round should there be five or more teams from one conference that are selected to play in the tournament.
Because of this, people thought that they could keep the Michigan-Michigan State matchup and just let bracket integrity play out.
The key here is that this rule gives the committee the right to do it. It is not a hard and fast rule.
The way that I have always interpreted this rule is that if you can avoid the intra-conference matchup, you don’t invoke the rule.
This year, you could avoid it, and thus, you didn’t need to invoke it.
How To Break Ties
Once again, we saw a strong indication that ties are broken by the RPI.
How else do you explain Michigan State getting the last at-large spot when it was tied with Northern Michigan and Merrimack in the comparison?
Or how Boston University is the nine seed and Maine is the 10 seed?
I think we now know that ties are broken by the RPI, and not a combination of the comparison itself, or any other factors.
Protecting The Number One Seed
We see that this is the case once again. Or else you could have just switched Michigan State with Air Force. Instead, the committee left the 1-16 matchup and switched Michigan State out.
Thanks again for a great year, I’ve loved making you guys think and I hope that it helps you in your understanding on how the selection process works for the tournament.
Have a great Tournament!
