2022 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament Selections
What the committee got wrong—and by how much.
As of tonight March Madness is in full swing. Disagreements and arguments about the field are everywhere. One of the only things fans seem to agree upon is the NCAA selection committee definitely made at least some mistakes. The committee certainly hasn’t given the public any reasons to trust their methodology and media pundits throw around biased opinions like no-look passes. It’s right for fans to be suspicious and to want more information about this cryptic process.
While we can’t change the outcome, we can evaluate the field using objective information. For a moment let’s forget the opinion-based field we’ve got and grade the field by data from the actual games (More on that below). Very sarcastic spoiler alert: Some have a legitimate axe to grind on their team’s behalf.
Last year, the committee selected 64 of the 68 teams reflected in this objective bracket. 26 of the 68 seedings were also in line. This year, we see a slight regression, with 62 teams and 24 seedings matching this formula. Let’s get right to the biggest pain point—the teams who should’ve been here and were dumped by the NCAA. In order:
Oklahoma, SMU, Wake Forest, Texas A&M, Xavier, Oklahoma St.
Despite popular opinion leaning towards the Aggies, Oklahoma was the true snub of the year. This bracket lists them as a 9-seed and they were tied in stat value with 8-seed Seton Hall and 7-seed USC. The Big XII was the year’s strongest conference by a wide margin but despite more quality wins than most teams could boast, the Sooners couldn’t overcome their 15 losses. Mississippi St. and Utah St. suffer similar 15-loss fates. And while this Bearcat is hesitant to give Xavier their due, the NET and Sagarin rankings believed in them by just enough. So which teams did the slippery committee deem worthy in their place?
Creighton, Iowa St., Notre Dame, Miami (FL), Wyoming, Rutgers
Rutgers takes the crown for being the committee’s luckiest darling. It’s a bigger miss than any last year as well. No disrespect intended for the Scarlet Knights, but 23 teams who missed the tournament have better objective resumes. Any of the six snubbed teams above or other near misses like Mississippi St. and BYU have valid cause to gripe. The other five teams are head-scratchers but less egregious; Creighton was one of this ranking’s First Four Out.
So how does this impact your brackets this March?
Take a look at the plus/minus ratings on this bracket for a quick field study of who’s over-seeded or under-seeded. Providence is the most over-valued team in the field. Their on-court performance this year yielded a 10-seed, but the committee showed a lot of love and gave them a 4-seed. The most under-valued team in the field is Virginia Tech, who won the ACC Championship and only received an 11-seed for their trouble.
It’s important to remember that these ranks do not take injuries or suspensions into account, or early-year vs. late-year team performance—only what has taken place on the court this year-to-date. If you want to chase the ever elusive perfect bracket, make sure you’ve got other tools in your toolbox, like some of the others we’ve looked at in the past.
A note on the selection formula update
This year I’ve tweaked the formula for evaluation, replacing BPI with NET rankings to align with the NCAA’s own move towards more objective sets of data (BPI uses subjective data, like preseason recruit rankings in its equations). Sagarin and KenPom.com’s AdjEM are also used as secondary evaluations and a simple average score is drawn to rank and seed the teams. A full look at the evaluation is available here.
Good luck on your brackets. If you’ve enjoyed this look at the field or have your own formula, let me know in the comments.
Edit: Twitter user @hawkguymatt points out that Oklahoma State was ineligible for the tournament. For this exercise, the Cowboys’ numbers show they would’ve been statistically good enough for the field.
