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NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION MEDIA CONFERENCEMarch 16, 2015Dru HancockTHE MODERATOR: Earlier tonight the ten member committee announced the bracket for the 2015 championship. Play in the championship will begin this Friday, March the20th, culminating with the 2015 Final Four in Tampa Bay with the national championship decided on April the7th. Dru. DRU HANCOCK: Thank you, Rick. Good evening everyone. I'd like to start by thanking the committee members for the numerous hours they spent on the process. In total we've watched over a thousand games this season in preparing for selections today. The committee brought into the process knowledge of games watching games and seeking input through various groups including coaching rankings and watching team play very closely. We believe we've put together a bracket that will result in a very exciting Final Four and championship. Look forward to crowning a champion in Tampa Bay in a couple of weeks. THE MODERATOR: Questions. Q. I saw on the NCAA Selection Show on ESPN that LSU and Tulane, two schools in our circulation area, were among the last four in. Could you talk about the factors that led them to be selected as at‑larges? DRU HANCOCK: LSU obviously plays in a very strong conference in the SEC. They had several games this year without one of their top players ‑‑ Danielle Ballard is back and healthy. That clearly has made a difference in their performance, three top 50 wins. 16‑13 overall wasn't the strongest record but certainly we were pleased to include them in the field. As far as Tulane, I think their conference affiliation hurts them a little bit but they did have one win in the top 50. They beat Miami, LSU and North Carolina State and 5‑5 in the last ten games. The final four teams in and the first four out are probably the toughest decisions that the committee has to make because the team sheets look very similar, and you usually try to find one extenuating factor that puts a team in or leaves them out and certainly LSU and Tulane had that. Q. Nice job as always on the bracket tonight for you guys on the committee. I heard on ESPNU about the Princeton question an eighth seed if not higher. Could you expand. When you announced the top 20 seeds a month ago you had them at 21 or 22. And they didn't lose since then and won most of their games pretty handily. They dropped at least 10 spots. I'm curious what the difference was, why they dropped so much and exactly how much consideration did you guys give to them being higher than an 8 seed? DRU HANCOCK: Great question. And quite frankly, we probably talked about Princeton as much as any team in this bracket. And not just the top four seed lines or the last four in. It wasn't what Princeton didn't do, it's frankly the conference they're in. You can't do better than be undefeated. But at the end of the day, when all was discussed by the committee, they didn't have a win in the top 25. They really played a couple of teams and won in the top 25 to 50. But as I said on the show tonight 21 of their 30 wins were against teams that had RPI over 100, and that did hurt them a bit. Q. On a separate note it seems‑‑ I know there was discussion about traveling with planes and such and geographies seemed to play a big part. I know it's one of your principles and procedures you guys look at. How important was location for teams not traveling that much early on because of flights or other such things for you guys? DRU HANCOCK: Well, honestly, that didn't come into our factoring at all. We picked the bracket and tried to create a balanced bracket, especially for the top four seeds. You obviously noticed that we ended up sending Notre Dame to Oklahoma City and not to Greensboro for a couple of reasons. One, because South Carolina was another No. 1 seed we felt with their fan base and being less than 200 miles from Greensboro that made sense, and we also felt Notre Dame fans could make it to the city fairly easily. At least we had the luxury of not having to ship teams across country and tried to mitigate that as much as possible. Q. Chattanooga came in ranked 17th with an RPI of 20. Can you talk a little bit about what went into ranking them as a seventh seed and what was the factor of setting them up with a potential rematch against Tennessee whom they beat this year when they were a top 10 team? DRU HANCOCK: Sure. I have to tell you the committee likes Chattanooga a lot. We've all known Jim Foster for a long time, he's done a great job. Had some great wins early in the year against Tennessee and Stanford. A couple of losses hurt them against South Florida and Arkansas State might have dropped them a little bit. But I hope they're happy with their seed. Why wouldn't the committee want to have Chattanooga play Tennessee again? It's a great matchup. Should provide some great drama. And that's one of the things we're trying to create is compelling matchups, and that will certainly be one. Q. I know you have to recuse yourself when Big 12 teams are being talked about. But maybe you can just give me a little bit of guidance here on two Big 12‑related questions. One, how close, if at all, was Baylor in terms of discussion for a possible No. 1 seed. And second question, according to ESPN, TCU, in the first four out, and if you could just go through kind of the situation there with TCU, the other teams that were on the bubble? DRU HANCOCK: Of course. Well, Baylor was certainly in the discussions for the Final Four No. 1 seed. Right there with Maryland and Tennessee. Exactly where they were on February20th when we made the decision differently, to put Tennessee up there at that point. Baylor, those two hiccups they had in the late Big 12 Conference season hurt them and probably was the fact that put them down to a No. 2 seed. TCU had a phenomenal year, great year for Raegan Pebley and their program. The one, I would say, mitigating factor against them was their RPI. They had good wins. They were 4‑6 in the last 10 games. And only one loss over 100. But the fact they only had one top 25 win in their RPI was probably the thing that left them out of the field. Q. Question about Princeton. They played 19 road or neutral games which was more than any major conference team, which is curious in terms of scheduling how that factored in the evaluation and what message this sends to mid major programs that can't get home in homes with those top 25 programs? DRU HANCOCK: We hope it doesn't send a negative message. Again, we spent a lot of time on Princeton. And their strength of schedule didn't help them at all. And what we found or I found over the last five years on the committee is that teams really need to schedule teams in the top 50.  Whether they win them or not, it may not be as importantly as the fact they've tried to schedule them. And Princeton's team sheet on the left side where all those top teams are really didn't merit it. Q. Did the road neutral portion of their schedule factor in at all? DRU HANCOCK: We never discussed it. Q. You had four instances where you have conference teams meeting before the Elite Eight, and I realize there's an out in terms of doing that, in terms of the procedures and principles, but you guys do say or the procedures and principles do say you try every possible way to avoid that. Was that not a huge consideration to avoid that this year? DRU HANCOCK: Well, no, it was a huge situation, as a matter of fact, Michelle. And when we looked at the conference breakdown and the top four seed lines, there was our conundrum. We had five ACC teams, four Pac‑12 teams, three SEC teams, two Big Ten and one Big 12. And then one from the American. That was a juggling act for us, not just in terms of geographic proximity for our top seeds but how to ensure as much as possible that conference opponents didn't meet at least until the semis or regional. There was a lot of discussion about that. Q. You mentioned earlier in terms of with the, if you will, the geographic S curve as opposed to a straighter S curve, when you're making the decision in terms of sending Notre Dame to Oklahoma City versus Greensboro, which they are technically closer to by 200 miles, was that a matter of South Carolina and Notre Dame being sort of almost equal to you in terms of No. 1 seeds? DRU HANCOCK: It wasn't that so much in the discussion. It was, frankly, pretty much a common sense decision. I mean, South Carolina was less than 200 miles away from Greensboro. Notre Dame was closer geographically in terms of mileage but not significantly so. And we just felt that‑‑ of course if you watch the Selection Show tonight with the South Carolina fans going crazy, we didn't think that was a good decision. Notre Dame's going to travel as well to Oklahoma City. We think their fan base can get there readily and might have an easier drive than trying to get to Greensboro. Q. Number one, what kept Western Kentucky from being higher than a 12 seed, and number two, had they lost their conference championship game would they still have gotten in the field? DRU HANCOCK: Well, I think the answer to that question is they would have still been on the board for discussion but I certainly can't guarantee they would have been in the field. We watched that game very closely this weekend. Of course, they have an overall great record. But they're 0‑2 against the top 50. Their strength of schedule hurt them a lot at 104. And, again, I wouldn't say that if they'd lost that they wouldn't be in the field but they certainly would have been at the bottom of the teams for consideration. Q. My question regards the inclusion in the seeding of Arkansas, with the 6‑10 in‑conference record. And I understand the whole strength of schedule and the major conferences and stuff. But to see them get in and be seated as a 10 when you have teams like James Madison and some of the others that have been ranked for most of the season in the top 25, and then they get dropped to a 12, I'm a little confused by what went into that decision. Can you talk about it, please? DRU HANCOCK: Sure. I will tell you, quite candidly, that rankings are not something that are even on our criteria board. I think fans and perhaps the media pay a lot more attention to that than the committee does. Arkansas had beat some teams that we thought were significant in the top 25. JMU, again, 29‑3 overall, but their strength of schedule was 130. So their RPI wasn't the problem, it was the strength of schedule compared to Arkansas, the strength of schedule was 5. So that was significant. Q. Just as a follow‑up. Graham had mentioned what about the situations where you've got programs like this that some of the top teams that you're talking about won't play them in home‑and‑homes, so they end up not being able to get scheduled? DRU HANCOCK: You raise a very good point and it's a great question. I'm not sure I have the answer for it on this call. We have to hope that to get more parity that teams will schedule outside of their conference. And quite frankly, there is a paucity of big, major conferences that won't schedule outside very much because they have so much depth and play such strong competition in their own league. So it's a very valid point. We don't have any conference scheduling matrixes or parameters that are required, so it's something that we need to address. THE MODERATOR: Thank you. FastScripts Transcript by ASAP Sports |
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