On
March 7, 1982, that the NCAA Tournament Selection, also known as Selection
Sunday, was first broadcast on live television. Since then, a live
broadcast of the event, which takes place the weekend before the tournament
begins, has been used to inform each school of whether they have made it into
the tournament, and where they will be seeded.
Both
CBS and ESPN televise the selection process, however, CBS owns the official
rights to cover the selection of the men’s tournament field as they broadcast
the vast majority of the games. What will happen, as a result, is CBS
will announce each bracket first, followed by ESPN only seconds later.
The selection process
for College
basketball's NCAA
Division I Men's
and Women's
Basketball Championships determines which teams (68 men's, 64 women's) will
enter the tournaments (the centerpieces of the basketball championship frenzy
known as "March Madness") and their seedings and matchups in the
knockout bracket. Thirty-one teams gain automatic entry through winning their
conference's championship (commonly through winning a conference
tournament or, in the sole case of the Ivy League, the regular
season title).
The remaining teams (37 men's, 33 women's) rely on the
selection committee to award them an at-large bid in the tournament.
The selection process primarily takes place on Selection Sunday and the days leading
up to it; Selection Sunday is also when the brackets and seeds are released to
the public. (The women's championship brackets and seeds are announced one day
later, on Selection Monday.)
The
ten-member basketball selection committee is made up of athletic directors and
conference commissioners throughout Division I men's and women's basketball.
(There are separate committees for the Division I men's and women's tournaments.)
The
committee, whose members serve 5-year terms, is chosen to ensure that
conferences from around the country, both major and mid-major conferences, are
represented. Generally the men's selection committee consists of all men, and
the women's selection committee consists of all women, although there have been
exceptions, including Lynn Hickey (see below), who is the 2nd woman to sit on
the men's committee (after Charlotte athletic
director Judy Rose, who served from 1999-2003), and Metro
Atlantic Athletic Conference commissioner Richard Ensor, who serves on the
women's committee. The tournament selection is only part of the committee
members' duties; the panel meets year-round (in-person or through conference
calls) to discuss the tournament and its administration, evaluate teams, assign
tournament game officials, and determine future tournament sites.
To
avoid a potential conflict
of interest, committee members must leave the room when their own school is
being discussed--or schools in the case of the conference commissioners. The
member may be invited to answer factual questions regarding their team (e.g.
status of player injuries). An athletic director may be present when other
schools from his or her conference are discussed, but he or she may only speak
if asked.
The selection committee must first decide which teams will
compete in the tournament. Thirty teams receive automatic bids to the
tournament by winning their conference
tournament; a thirty-first team gains automatic entry by winning the Ivy League's regular-season
championship (as that conference does not conduct a championship tournament).
The
only teams the selection committee selects are the 37 teams (33 for women) who
receive at-large bids.
Though each conference receives only one automatic bid, the selection committee
can select any number of at-large teams from each conference. The at-large
teams generally come from college basketball's top conferences, including the ACC, Atlantic-10, Big East, Big Ten, Big 12, Conference USA, Mountain West,
Pac-12, and SEC. Many of
these at-large teams, however, are "on the bubble," meaning their
chances of gaining a tournament berth are borderline, and they will not know if
they have gained entry until they see their name during the Selection Sunday
bracket announcements.
A
number of teams essentially know that they are assured of an at-large berth no
matter their performance in their conference tournament. Most teams in the Top
25 in the national polls or RPI are
essentially guaranteed at-large berths even if they do not win their respective
conference tournament.
However,
teams that have been ranked heading into Selection Sunday, but didn't win their
conference tournament, have been left out (or "snubbed") by the
selection committee despite what the polls and pundits may say. The Missouri Valley
Conference has received the most snubs (5 RPI top 40
teams excluded), with Missouri State
left out each of the last 9 years, despite RPI's of 21, 34, and 36). Another
famous snub was in 2004, when Utah State completed the regular season with a
record of 25-2 but was snubbed after losing in its conference tournament, even
though it was ranked in the polls at the time.
Selection Sunday this year in March 16.
