If political pundits determined who would run for the Republican presidential nomination in 2016, Donald Trump would not have even made the field. No one thought the business mogul had a shot at winning the nomination when he entered the primary. With good reason. A President has been elected in the United States every four years since 1789 and not once has one been elected who did not serve in the government and/or the military.
In the world of politics, the apparent anti-establishment sentiment appears to have changed the manner in which elections are won. Political experience is not the driving force it was in prior elections. Large donations by a few have been overwhelmed by the modest donations by many. The endorsements of political leaders have not equated to victories. Negative advertising by Political Action Committees have been rendered oddly ineffective.
I know there are many in the reading audience who have passionate views on this topic, but my point is not one of politics. Instead I am using a very familiar topic to introduce a concept that has become progressively more important in this era of increased data analytic activity. My point is that using historical data to predict future results can be misleading if factors change. This misdirection can take many forms, but I'm going to use the NCAA Tournament to shed some light on this concern. Specifically, the fact that the NCAA selection committee uses antiquated concepts to fill out the basketball tournament field is leading to flaws that are incredibly costly to a class of schools that are consistently being overlooked.
How are Teams Invited to the NCAA Tournament?
The naming of the 68 teams that are invited to the NCAA tournament is part objective and part subjective. College basketball teams do not make the NCAA tournament because they ask to enter the fray. There are thirty-two conferences that compete in the highest grouping of NCAA men’s basketball. Thirty-one of those conferences have a 3, 4 or 5-day conference tournament, with the winning teams earning automatic bids to the NCAA tournament. The Ivy League does not currently have a conference tournament, instead they give their automatic bid to their regular season champion.
The conference tournament format gives hope to almost every school even after mediocre to horrendous seasons. Winning a few games over one extended weekend can lead to an invitation to the Big Dance. The problem is the guaranteed opportunity that these conference tournaments offer to so many schools, often comes at the expense of schools that have excelled over the course of the entire regular season. With 32 teams getting automatic bids, only 36 spots remain for teams that don’t win their conference automatic bids. These 36 "at-large" bids are often not enough for most schools from small conferences to receive an invitation to the NCAA tournament if they don’t win their conference tournament.
Every year, the NCAA selection committee determines which schools make the NCAA tournament with the limited at-large bids that are available. The challenge is that they must make these decisions with very little tangible data to compare teams across conferences. There are very few games in the regular season in which teams from different conferences play each other. Even if they do, almost all of those games occur in the first two months of the season. By the time selections are made, teams have often improved or regressed dramatically.
What are the Statistics for At-Large Bids?
This year 26 at-large bids went to teams from the five “Power Conferences” (ACC, Big 10, Big 12, SEC, Pac-12) while only 10 went to teams from any of the other 27 conferences. In each of these five power conferences, at least one bid went to a team that lost more than 12 regular season games and/or lost as many conference games as they won. The NCAA selection committee was not this forgiving to any other team from any other conference. For years, the committee has had a tendency to select middling teams from the Power Conferences over top teams from smaller conferences. This was likely because the teams from these smaller conferences historically have had very little chance of making a run against multiple teams from the larger schools in the NCAA tournament.
Why Do They Do It This Way?
The argument from many college basketball experts is that the purpose of the NCAA tournament is to determine the best team in the country. Based on this premise, the NCAA should put the best teams in the tournament. These same experts suggest that the best teams generally come from the larger conferences because that’s where you will find the better players.
What’s Wrong with their Argument?
The first flaw in the argument is the suggestion that the purpose of the NCAA tournament is only to determine THE best team in the country. The tournament also gives us a sense of how all of the top teams and conferences stack up when compared to others. What we have learned is that schools don’t have to win the entire tournament to benefit from an appearance. Each victory in the tournament provides measurable value to the universities, the coaches and the players. It has led to progression for coaches like Brad Stevens (formerly at Butler now coaching the Boston Celtics), Shaka Smart (formerly VCU now at Texas) and Jim Larranaga (formerly George Mason now at Miami). Players like Doug McDermott (Creighton) and C.J. McCollum (Lehigh) have ridden NCAA tournament success to high draft status in the NBA.
Most importantly, universities have benefitted from each victory. Recent tournament successes have translated to increased applications (350% increase for George Mason), increased tuition revenues ($3.4M increase for VCU via out-of-state acceptances for 2012-13 school year) and free national media attention (valued at $1.2B for Butler over the span of their two extended tourney runs). These factors lead to a cyclical benefit as with Gonzaga which has received 18 consecutive invitations to the NCAA tournament with one or more tourney wins in all but three of those years.
The experts’ argument is also flawed because of its presumption that the best teams are the ones with the best players and those players generally go to schools from larger conferences. One does not need to look further than recent results to understand the flaw to this logic. Butler, VCU, and George Mason have successfully reached the Final Four of recent tournaments. Teams like Gonzaga, Wichita State and Northern Iowa performed well this year and in prior years. Either these small schools have some of the best players or the best players are not always on the best teams.
Interestingly enough, the National Invitational Tournament (“NIT”), which invites the ‘next best’ 32 teams, had a pair of semifinal match-ups which only included schools from non-power conferences: George Washington, BYU, San Diego State and Valparaiso. Conversely, only two of the nine schools invited from power conferences advanced to the quarterfinals of the NIT and that was only because both of those teams (Florida and Georgia Tech) played other power conference schools (Ohio State and South Carolina) in the prior round. Someone had to win.
What Factors have Changed?
As I warned at the top of this article, we must proceed with caution when using historical data to predict future results because factors may have changed. As in politics, college basketball has seen dramatic changes in the past decade.
1) The talent disparity has diminished - The best players may still not go to the schools from smaller conferences, but the disparity has narrowed between the top players who play in smaller conferences and those who play for the middle layer of teams in the power conferences. This is a function of a number of reasons including the expansion of talent at the high school levels.
2) Many college players are leaving school earlier - The most talented players almost universally play for the larger schools. This is still the case, but many are leaving school to enter the professional draft after fewer years. This leads to inexperience and lack of cohesion at many of the power conference schools.
3) Smaller schools are making larger investments in their basketball programs - As universities witness the gains achieved by schools with improving basketball programs (both on the court and in the classrooms) greater investments have been made. Better athletic facilities and changing affiliations to stronger basketball conferences are just a couple of examples. The Ivy League has even decided to add a conference tournament which will increase revenues for all schools in the conference.
So What Should be Done?
The idea that middling teams from power conferences are more worthy of at-large bids to the NCAA tournament over dominant regular season champions from smaller conferences is antiquated madness. Teams like Pittsburgh, Texas Tech, Southern California and Oregon State each went 9-9 in their conferences, but still managed to get at-large bids. None of them won a single game in the tournament. (Before I hear from folks who point to Syracuse’s 9-9 record and their tourney success, I will note that their conference record was 9-6 when their coach Jim Boeheim was not serving his suspension in the middle of the season.)
Conversely, teams like St. Mary’s, San Diego State, Valparaiso and UAB each won their conference regular season titles in convincing fashion, with a 63-9 combined conference record. None made the NCAA tournament because they lost in their conference tournament and did not receive an at-large bid. In each case, they lost to a team in their conference tournament that they had beaten once or twice during the regular season. It is shameful to hand-off the NCAA tournament opportunity earned by these teams in favor of less-deserving teams that have proven repeatedly over the course of the season that they are NOT among the best teams in the NCAA.