Updated: March 2011

The NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament will expand from 65 to 68 teams this year. That means that there will be four "play-in" games instead of one. The NCAA is referring to the play-in games as the "First Round" but I will refer to them as play-ins for consistency sake. The Selection Committee will announce the last four at-large (non-automatic bid) teams. These teams will play each other in two of the play-in games. These teams could be seeded anywhere from 10 to 13, but 11 or 12 is probably most likely. The bottom four teams in the tournament (typically small schools) will face each other in the other two play-ins. They will be 16 seeds. That will of course get us to 64 teams. The play-in games will be held on the Tuesday and Wednesday following Selection Sunday. I've been advocating the expansion to 68 teams on this website for a number of years. However, I assumed that the NCAA would only have the bottom eight teams playing the play-in games. I don't see the benefit of pitting the last four at-large teams against each other.

The process by which the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament Selection Committee chooses the 37 at-large bids (those teams that did not gain automatic entry by winning their conference championship) is not an exact science, but the major selection criteria are as follows:

• RPI -- The RPI (Rating Percentage Index) is a statistical tool used by the Selection Committee to rank every Division 1 school in America. The index takes into account each team's winning percentage, the winning percentage of its opponents and the winning percentage of its opponents' opponents then applies an inflator/deflator to each game depending on whether it was played at home or on the road. The Committee relies heavily on the RPI which rewards teams that play a difficult schedule and penalizes teams that line up creampuff opponents outside of conference play. To cite an example, the Georgia Bulldogs were 16-14 in 2001, but were invited to the tournament because they played the toughest schedule in America and were ranked 27th in the RPI standings. Between 1995 and 2005, no eligible team with an RPI better than 33 was left out of the tournament. That all changed in 2006 when #21 Missouri State and #30 Hofstra were not invited to the NCAA Tournament. This was not entirely unexpected, however, because the RPI formula was changed at that time (a bad move in my humble opinion). Since 1995, only eleven teams with RPIs above 60 have made the tournament as at-large selections. Two of those had RPIs of 70 or more -- Air Force (70th in 2004) and New Mexico (74th in 1999). New Mexico's invitation was almost certainly made possible by the fact that their Athletic Director and League Commissioner were on the Selection Committee. I can't explain the selection of Air Force. The following table shows just how important RPI has been over the past decade (though it has become slightly less important since the RPI formula was altered in 2006).

% of Eligible Teams Invited to Tournament (excludes automatic bids)

RPI Rank	1995-2005	2006-2010
0 to 29	100%	99%
30 to 39	92%	80%
40 to 49	58%	50%
50 to 59	21%	37%
60 to 69	6%	11%

• Conference Winning Percentage/Standings -- In the six major conferences (ACC, Big East, Big Ten, Big XII, SEC, Pac Ten) and even the second-tier conferences (Atlantic 10, Conference USA, Mountain West, WAC), a team's record in conference play is one the most important indicators determining whether or not the team will be invited to the "Big Dance." Rarely will the NCAA Selection Committee invite a team that finishes below .500 in regular season conference play. It is also rare for the Committee to bypass a team in the league standings to invite another team that finished lower in the standings. Between 1996 and 2004, the only two times that a team in one of the six major conferences was bypassed occurred in 1998 when Florida State (6-10 in ACC play) was invited and 7-9 Wake Forest was not and in 2004 when Texas Tech (9-7 in the B12) was taken ahead of 10-6 Colorado. Since 2005, however, 12 teams in the six major conferences have been bypassed. The Selection Committee had good reason to do this. In nine of those cases, the team that was bypassed had an RPI more than 15 slots worse than the team being to the Tournament. Florida State is the only team since 1996 to finish four games below .500 in conference play and receive an at-large bid. I doubt that will ever happen again.
  
  Between 1995 and 2007, 90% of teams that finished above .500 in one of the six top conferences (excluding automatic qualifiers) were invited to the Tournament (287 of 319). Of the 32 that did not, only 13 had an RPI ranking better than 60. Between 2008 and 2010, that percentage dropped to 84% (72 of 86) so it looks like finishing above .500 in a major conference does not have the clout it once did. Between 1995 and 2007, only 30% of the teams in those six conferences that finished exactly .500 in league play were given a bid. Since 2008, more than half (9 of 17) of the .500 teams were in the NCAA Tournament. A final note on conference winning percentage: between 1995 and 2006, only six teams from one of the six major conferences finished four games above .500 (or better) in conference play and were not invited to the NCAA Tournament. In the last four years, it has happened six times including 12-6 Arizona State (RPI of 63) last year.



• Road/Neutral Court Record -- Because no one plays home games in the NCAA Tournament, the Selection Committee looks closely at a team's road and neutral court record as an indicator of how well they will perform in the NCAA Tournament. The Committee will look favorably on teams that have shown the ability to win on the road and may look unfavorably on a team with a poor record away from home.



• Record in the Last 10 Games -- The Selection Committee loves a team that rolls into March Madness on a hot streak. A team in a major conference with 23 wins will certainly not be excluded from the tournament if they finish the season with a 3-7 record in their last ten, but for a team on the bubble, late season performance could mean the difference between a spot in the field of 65 and a trip to the NIT.



• Record Against the RPI Top 50 -- More than 85% of the RPI Top 50 in recent years earned a bid to the NCAA Tournament so a team's record against this group is a good indicator of how they will stack up against the field of 65. The Committee pays very close attention to road wins against teams with strong RPI rankings.



• Total Wins -- It was once believed that a 20-win season in a major conference would guarantee a spot in the NCAA Tourney. This is no longer the case. Twenty wins in a major conference makes a strong statement but it will not, by itself, earn you a "dance card." At one time, teams from small conferences could only gain entry to the NCAA Tournament by winning their conference championship. Now, these "mid major" programs are competing for at-large bids with middle of the pack teams from the major conferences. In 2006, the Missouri Valley Conference sent three at large teams to the NCAA Tournament, the same number as the ACC, Big 12 and Pac Ten.

Unfortunately, many of the talking heads that we see on television this time of year making predictions about who will and will not make the tournament don't seem to have a firm grasp on the Committee's criteria. If you listen to Dick Vitale, you'd swear that there are 90 teams in the Tournament. If you listen to Jay Bilas, you might think that there are only 50 teams invited. The major sports websites like CBSSportsline and ESPN don't seem to be very accurate either. One very good source for bubble information is Jerry Palm's collegerpi.com. The man knows his March Madness and is more accurate in predicting the field than anyone else I've seen.

In 2003 and 2004, I used statistical modeling to predict the final field of 65 teams. Unfortunately, the NCAA changed a perfectly good RPI formula rendering my models useless. Because the history (the old RPI formula) does not match the current year (the new RPI formula), the predictions and odds do not make any sense. For example, my 2005 preliminary model (thanks to the new RPI) predicted that the MAC would get four bids. It appears that the new RPI formula inflates the rankings of mid-major schools. It's also ruined the rankings within the big conferences. To illustrate, the Pac Ten was the second highest ranked conference according to the RPI in 2004-05. Anyone who follows the sport knew that the Big East, SEC and Big XII were far stronger conferences.