Seed-By-Conference Analysis: Committee Loves the Big East and ACC

Among the big story lines from Sunday's filling out of the NCAA basketball tournament field, discussions of conferences who are "overrated" and "underrated" dominated the discussion. Specifically, fans of so-called mid-major teams cried foul, and the masses proclaimed the selection committee was biased in favor of the Big Ten and Pac-10 conferences.

The biggest issue I have with this instant "analysis" is that it's not analysis at all. Saying the NCAA thought the Big Ten was on-level with the ACC and Big East simply because they were allotted the same number of teams is -- with apologies to Bob Knight -- just plain stupid.

You see, it's easy to just look at the number of bids and act like that's how the NCAA views individual conferences. It's simple, and people like simple. Thus, it's the approach simpletons take, because they aren't capable of more analytical thought. Dive deeper, though. Do you really think the committee thought the Big Ten was on-level with the Big East when the Big East got three number one seeds and the Big Ten only received one Sweet 16 seed? Does that really, honestly sound even to you?

So here we are, with your guide on judging how the selection committee seriously judged conference strength. I went through every game and just picked the favored seed to win. Meaning eight beats nine, but then loses to one. And so on. We'll call the figure the "expected record," and this will give us a gauge on how strong the selection committee truly felt a conference was.

Big East

Number of teams: 7
Seeds: 1, 1, 1, 3, 3, 6, 6
Expected record: 20-6 (including three Final Four teams and one National Champion
Comments: See, this is far and away the strongest conference according to the committee. Look at those seeds. The seventh entrant from the league was awarded a six-seed. In fact, this has to be the best conference of all-time in terms of what they received from the committee -- as long as you don't get hung up on the number of bids. Their average seed is a three.

ACC

Number of teams: 7
Seeds: 1, 2, 4, 5, 7, 7, 10
Expected record: 13-7
Comments: Another conference that impressed the NCAA enough to get lots of favorable seeds. An interesting discrepancy -- which Seth Davis pointed out on the Selection Show -- is seeing Maryland receive a 10-seed while Wisconsin garnered a 12. How about Boston College landing a seven-seed despite an RPI of 60? These are just two illustrations of how highly the committee favored the ACC to other conferences (aside from the Big East, of course).

Big 12

Number of teams: 6
Seeds: 2, 3, 3, 7, 8, 9
Expected record: 9-6
Comments: They received less teams than the Big Ten and equal to the Pac-10, but got much better bang for their buck with three Sweet 16 seeds and an Elite Eight.

Big Ten

Number of teams: 7
Seeds: 2, 5, 5, 8, 10, 10, 12
Expected record: 6-7
Comments: Seriously? This is an overrated conference? They finished 2nd in conference RPI, and only got one Sweet 16 seed. Three of their seeds are of the one-and-done variety. Knowing this, can you seriously tell me the committee had bias toward the conference? The strength of the conference this year was the depth, but there was an admitted lack of elite teams. The seedings accurately reflected this. By the way -- Minnesota (42), Michigan (44), and Wisconsin (45) were all a bit better than Maryland (55) in the RPI. They were all seeded equal to or worse than the Terrapins. If Penn State made the tourney, the Big Ten haters would have a case. Instead, they don't.

Pac-10

Number of teams: 6
Seeds: 4, 6, 6, 7, 10, 12
Expected record: 5-6
Comments: Arizona (62 RPI) is the one team in the whole tourney that seems egregiously invited. Other than that, though, the conference didn't get a ton of credit. Only one Sweet 16 seed, and a four at that.

Mountain West

Number of teams: 2
Seeds: 5, 8
Expected record: 2-2
Comments: Well, they liked the teams they allowed in the tourney. Obviously, it's tough to imagine San Diego State sporting a 34 RPI in a "major" conference and not making the Dance. I'm actually very surprised they gave BYU an eight and then dropped everyone else off the board. It's not like BYU and Utah were playing at such a different level than New Mexico, SDSU, and UNLV.

Atlantic 10

Number of teams: 3
Seeds: 4, 11, 11
Expected record: 2-3
Comments: Again, a head-scratcher. Was Xavier really seven whole seeds better than Dayton?

SEC

Number of teams: 3
Seeds: 8, 9, 13
Expected record: 1-3
Comments: Simply put: The committee believes the SEC sucks this year. In fact, had Butler won the Horizon League tourney, it's conceivable to think they would have flipped seeds with LSU and the SEC would have come away with zero expected wins. If you want to proclaim power conference bias, you better look elsewhere.

Everyone Else

There are only six wins left from teams not in the above eight conferences. Memphis, as a two-seed, is expected to win three games before bowing out. Gonzaga, a four, is slated to take two. The lone remaining win? Well, someone has to win the play-in game. Every other team in the field, 21 of them from non-"power" conferences, has a worse seed than their first-round foe.

And yes, though I'm a Big Ten fan, it's really easy for me to admit St. Mary's got jobbed. We're talking about a 48 RPI from a team who was missing their best player for a decent chunk of the season. He's healthy enough to play now, so they should have included them in the field. This is the type of error (Mary's and/or SDSU vs. 'Zona and/or Maryland) that makes people believe the committee is biased.

Final Thought

This is how you should judge conference performance in the tournament. Don't be a simpleton. To illustrate the point, here's an example: If the Big East goes 14-7 and the Big Ten goes 10-7, I'm guessing there will be a bunch of people hanging their hats on the superior performance by the Big East. In actuality, as outlined above, the Big Ten would be exceeding expectations with a 10-7 record. Thus, they were underrated. The Big East would have fallen short of the lofty expectations, which means they were overrated.

We'll see how everything shakes out, but just remember -- it's not all about the number of teams per conference, and it's not necessarily about the won-loss record when judging if the committee was biased or "overrated" someone. It's much more complicated than that.