Get ready for Selection Sunday

Mike Slive will be the man in the cross-hairs this weekend.

He is the chair of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Committee. That means he oversees the selection committee for the NCAA Tournament.

Hence, the cross-hairs.

Slive answered questions earlier this week as part of a teleconference with media from across the country. Here are some interesting excerpts from it:

About the selection process:  The conference tournaments determine 30 of the 31 automatic qualifiers and provide a chance for any of the 322 teams in Division I to make the championships.  Everyone has a shot of making it to the Dance.

It is also a chance for teams to add meaningful wins to what they have already accomplished throughout the season.  I emphasize the words ‘through the season’.  A couple of wins this week can’t hurt, but it is certainly important that we look at the entire body of work for a team.

Wins in November and December count.  Losses in November and December count, just as they do in January, February and March.

I commented earlier that the committee has put in the work to be prepared for this week.  So have our coaches, whose input through the Regional Advisory Committee is one of the many tools we have to evaluate teams.  So have conference offices, who provide us with an incredible amount of useful information that we have had access to throughout the season as part of our conference monitoring program. 

We will take into consideration every piece of information that we have available and is relevant.  That includes injuries and the status of injured players.  It includes close losses, quality wins and a wide variety of circumstances that possibly could have affected results. 

But, again, we are reviewing results from the entire season.  Conference tournaments are exciting and serve a purpose.  But it is important for the committee to not get so caught up in what a team does this week and overlook what it has done over the course of the last four months.  That perspective is essential to right decisions.

It is our charge to pick the best 34 at‑large teams, regardless of conference affiliation.  And that’s what we are here to do.