The Selection Committee determines which teams will compete in the NCAA Tournament and how they will be seeded. They make their decisions after analyzing a wide range of data including win/loss records, strength of schedule, NET and other predictive metrics, team achievements, conference tournament play, team and coach consistency, the quality of opponents and many other factors.
The committee is composed of a chair, vice chair and additional members. Each member serves a three-year term and is appointed by the management committee. The chair and vice chair serve one year as each before rotating into the chair position to serve an additional one-year term. This ensures continuity, information transfer and institutional memory from year to year.
In addition to evaluating a variety of data, the committee is expected to attend televised games and use video replays extensively in their evaluations. The committee also holds meetings throughout the season and is provided with a wealth of historical data to assist in making their decisions. The committee members are not compensated for their participation, but they are reimbursed for expenses incurred in the process.
Some of the best-known members of the committee are athletic directors (ADs). Having ADs on the Selection Committee adds depth to the group because they have an insider’s perspective on the business side of college basketball, including conference operations and revenue generation. They also have extensive experience in evaluating their own schools and can provide valuable input into the overall evaluation process.
Another factor that may help cushion against implicit bias is having a diverse Selection Committee and Committee Chairs. A diversity of membership in terms of gender, employment sector, and ethnic background helps reduce the likelihood of unintentional stereotyping when discussing the merits of potential candidates.
While the Selection Committee does its best to evaluate all the available information objectively, there are always a number of subjective opinions that come into play. A common criticism is that the committee places too much value on the conference tournament results and not enough on the regular season. This can lead to a skewed field that benefits certain conferences more than others, or teams that are deemed not to have been as good as their record implies.
The final at-large spots are a little more complicated this year because there is a surplus of deserving bubble teams. Iowa State is a prime example. The committee debated the Cyclones based on their resume, which included a lower-than-usual non-conference SOS. The Cyclones ended up getting a 2-seed, while North Carolina received a 1-seed.
The committee will likely focus its efforts on evaluating teams that are in the at-large pool, but still need to be seeded. This scrubbing process will continue for the remainder of the week as conference tournament champions are added to the at-large board and then slowly shifted into the seeded board. The committee will repeat this process until there are 36 at-large teams in the field. Then the committee will start the process of creating their official brackets for the tournament.