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NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION MEDIA CONFERENCE

March 9, 2016

Joe Castiglione

DAVE WORLOCK: Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us today. Before we get started with Joe, we just want to give you a couple of quick reminders.

A transcript of the call will be posted shortly after the conclusion of the teleconference. That can be found at www.ncaa.com/transcripts. That same website will house all of the game day and off day press conference transcripts from each of the 14 sites, from the First Four through the Final Four hosting this year's tournament. That website again, ncaa.com/transcripts.

Please note that the selection show will air a half hour earlier this year. It begins Sunday at 5:30 p.m. Eastern on CBS, and that will last for two hours.

The tournament begins with the First Four Tuesday night in Dayton. All four games, the two Tuesday and the two Wednesday, will be aired on truTV. And CBS, TBS, TNT and truTV will carry first- and second-round games throughout the day and night Thursday through Sunday March 17th through the 20th. CBS and TBS will provide regional coverage Thursday through Sunday, March 24th to 27th. And TBS will carry the Final Four games for the first time April 2nd and 4th, when we'll crown our 78th national champion.

Also TNT and truTV will provide team stream coverage of both national semifinals and the national championship game.

In addition, the selection show and all 67 games of the tournament can be heard on Westwood One radio, and you can watch all the games on your laptops, tablets and mobile devices via the March Madness live app.

We also want to remind you that Joe will be available again via media teleconference on Sunday night at 9 p.m. I will send out information regarding the call-in numbers sometime later this week.

With that, I'll turn it over to Joe for his opening remarks before we take questions.

JOE CASTIGLIONE: Thank you very much, David. Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining us today.

We're talking to you for the first time ever, with the opportunity to move this selection meeting out of the headquarters city of the NCAA. So I'm speaking to you today from the selection room at the Marriott Marquis Hotel in New York City, our nation's largest city, and certainly an area that's steeped in basketball tradition.

We've enjoyed the opportunity to be with our partners from Turner and CBS, as well as some other media entities, kind enough to have had us on various shows this week so that interaction and the opportunity to share some information has been very, very helpful.

Soon after this call concludes, the selections meeting will officially get underway with the final of this season's conference monitoring reports. Shortly after those conclude, all 10 committee members will submit their initial ballot, the results of which set the stage for much of the discussion over the next five days.

As we'll know our teams that are locked and our teams that will be up for consideration to be part of this year's tournament field, we'll get moving forward quickly with a lot of other discussion right after that.

Of course, you might recall from last month's media teleconference, I mentioned how different this year feels compared to last year. 28 days later, I still feel the same way. Some teams in my view have played themselves into locked status; others have earned their way to the under consideration list. There's been some others that have fallen from those lists. But, of course, that's typical of every season as teams get hot, start to peak at different times of the year, or just get on a natural run. That's the nature of college basketball, where a team can move from off the radar to front and center for discussion with quality wins.

It's important to note that my view on a particular team in terms of their possible inclusion in the field or where they might be seeded is truly only one person's opinion. My colleagues on the committee may have and, in fact, in some instances will have differing opinions. Much of this is based on how a committee member feels about the various resources we use as part of our season-long evaluation of teams through watching games, the conference monitoring calls, and of course the regional advisory rankings that are provided by members of the NABC.

Those resources include complete box scores and results, they include head-to-head results, results versus common opponents, balanced conference schedules and results, overall and non-conference strength of schedule, quality of wins and losses, road records, player and coach availability, and of course various computer metrics.

We know there are many people talking about this, bracketologists, if you will, that study the same data we do, and come up with different teams and different seeds. We also know that committees from prior years may have reviewed data and produced a different bracket than the one we'll unveil on Sunday night.

This to me is less about the process of selecting and seeding teams, but is more about the nature of this exciting college basketball season, which has largely been unpredictable, however thoroughly entertaining, and in my opinion a better game overall thanks in part to the new rules and officiating directives.

The zaniness of the season makes a tough task for the committee this week, but I believe will also make for a typical crazy March Madness.

Let's face it, the madness is well underway. For example, we have Yale as an automatic qualifier from the Ivy League, which hasn't been to the NCAA tournament since, well, before I was in kindergarten.

Among the 11 conference tournaments that have concluded, only Chattanooga from the Southern Conference has won the tournament as the No. 1 seed. The other 10 No. 1 seeds lost. Tonight's Patriot League final doesn't feature the No. 1 seed, so the top seeds through tonight will be 1 for 12.

With that little fun fact, I'm ready to answer some questions you might have.

Q. Joe, this is one of those obvious questions we sometimes have to ask. How much value are victories in a conference tournament versus the regular season? How do you weigh them differently, or do you?
JOE CASTIGLIONE: Well, from my standpoint the conference tournament games are an extension of the regular season. It's certainly an opportunity to enhance your rÃ©sumÃ©. So those games will be part of our evaluation.

Q. Joe, you're going to be sort of the face of the sport here coming Sunday. You didn't grow up in a college basketball hotbed, but you went to school at one. Talk about how going to Maryland sort of gave you an appreciation for what college basketball can be.
JOE CASTIGLIONE: That was back when the tournament was much smaller. The opportunities obviously were fewer to get into the NCAA basketball tournament.

But attending college at Maryland, which at that time was in the ACC, we saw incredible games day in, day out, night in, night out, with outstanding players. We knew how uniquely special it was to participate.

Related to this period of time where the tournament is larger now with 68 teams, it's still an incredibly special moment to be selected for the tournament, to get in and play. Then when you win multiple games, obviously you advance further on into the tournament, to the Final Four, have the opportunity to play for a national championship.

So when I was in school, Maryland didn't get invited to play in the NCAA tournament. It was really frustrating because we had some outstanding teams.

But this is one of America's greatest sporting events. In fact, it has evolved into one of the world's most iconic events, a must-see. We'll have people tuning in to watch this tournament that may not watch basketball all year long.

So it's an incredible honor to be part of it and to see up close how meaningful it is for each of those student-athletes to get to play, whether it's their excitement when the announcement comes out on Sunday evening, the brackets are released, to seeing them come to the various sites, participate with just unbridled joy.

Realize for some that might be the only time they ever get a chance to experience the NCAA tournament. So we really truly value this is a uniquely special collegiate event, and try to treat it as such.

Q. Joe, can you address specific injuries. What do you view of the impact to Tres Tinkle's injury to Oregon State if he can't return this season.
JOE CASTIGLIONE: We're certainly aware of his injury, the games he's missed. We also know about an injury or absence of another player for Oregon State.

But generally speaking, player and coach availability is definitely a consideration for us when we're evaluating a team's performance throughout the season.

The games all count. It's important to note that. But it's also important to note that injuries or suspensions, which may have impacted a team's performance during the course of the season, particularly when you can measure how a team played with or without a key player, is something that we'll certainly take into consideration.

Q. Joe, you mentioned before about the coach suspension. You never said 'Jim Boeheim', but you were referencing Syracuse. How will the committee evaluate the nine games where Jim Boeheim was not coaching Syracuse?
JOE CASTIGLIONE: Well, we certainly know they struggled a little bit during that time. I think they went 4-5 while Coach Boeheim was not involved with the program.

As you note, and said before, we look at coach availability and player availability roughly the same. We know they played better with him on the sidelines, of course.

But, again, all those games count throughout the entire year. It will all be taken into consideration. We just can't discount or marginalize a game, regardless of the situation.

Q. A team like Monmouth, which didn't win their conference tournament, early in the year they had great wins, UCLA, Georgetown, then those two schools had disappointing seasons. How much do you and the committee evaluate wins that change over the course of the season as those teams' fortunes go in the wrong way and the wins today don't look as good as they did in November?
JOE CASTIGLIONE: We evaluate their rÃ©sumÃ©s based on what they have done. We recognize the great season Monmouth had, the quality team they are.

I will make note, we had a principle to automatically include regular-season conference champions on our under consideration board. So when we take our initial ballot this afternoon, if they are part of the grouping of teams that receive at least three votes, as a regular-season champion, they'll be added to the under consideration board.

We know they're a team that went on the road 17 times during the course of the season and won 13 of those. That doesn't even include the six neutral-site games they played. So among their 34 games this year, 23 were played away from home, and they won 17 of those games. So those are additional considerations that will be included in our discussion.

Q. In Iowa there's three teams that will go to the NCAA tournament. There's one site in Iowa. I know one team is ineligible from competing in Des Moines. The other two I had a question about. If Iowa works its way into a three line and it's equal with Xavier, but on the Snake is a spot or two behind, do you gerrymander it to some extent to put Iowa there over a Xavier if it's closer to Xavier or is it true to the Snake?
JOE CASTIGLIONE: The short answer is no. We use the overall seed list. When you fall on the next one up, you get the preference. We would not disadvantage a team on the seed list to help out another team lower on the seed list.

I may add one point. You may know that Iowa State is serving as the host for the first and second rounds, so they will not be eligible to play in Des Moines.

Q. Joe, the fact that Monmouth lost in the title game on Monday, they have to wait around and see what everybody else does, in general, for a mid-major with what you might call a better-than-average rÃ©sumÃ©, how much of an uphill climb is it for them to get into the at-large seed discussion?
JOE CASTIGLIONE: Well, again, I might mention that they will be added to our under consideration list automatically as the regular-season champion. The same holds true for the regular-season champions, those No. 1 seeds in those conference tournaments I mentioned earlier in my opening remarks who did not win their tournament title.

Their rÃ©sumÃ© is filled with road and neutral-court wins, which are important factors. Those wins are over teams that will or perhaps will be part of the field. Plus I think if you watch them, you can tell they're a quality team. We certainly have watched them throughout the season.

I can't imagine a scenario where they won't be discussed throughout the week.

Q. Joe, you mentioned that among the many things the committee considers are various computer metrics. I know any individual committee member can comprehend whatever he or she would like. Mainly speaking for yourself, what are some of the metrics you've looked at? Do they include some of the newer and advanced ones such as Sagarin and whatever else? What have you been looking at?
JOE CASTIGLIONE: Well, the common metrics most of us use are Ken Pom, Sagarin, LRMC, VPI, KPI. Those are the common ones.

As you mentioned, certainly we're not limited to those. Obviously the RPI is another metric that is utilized by the committee to help sort information.

As you probably know, some of the metrics are a little more predictive based and some are a little more results based. But they all have value. We constantly update those ratings and rankings throughout the entire five days we're together when games are played.

I would note maybe one thing that has been an interesting observation by our committee to this point. When comparing the last one or two years, this year we seem to notice more variance in some of the metrics for some of these teams. So obviously we'll have to dig deeper into those metrics and try and determine what that really means, get a better understanding of the reasons for the difference, and how that correlates with the decisions we'll make about selection or seeding.

Q. Joe, on Syracuse and Jim Boeheim. When a player misses a game, you can obviously point to tangible numbers to weigh the impact of that player missing a game. Can you go into a little bit more detail on how the committee will measure the impact of a coach missing a game.
JOE CASTIGLIONE: Well, in Syracuse's case, we recognize you have a Hall-of-Fame coach who has assembled his team, knows his team, positions his team, just as he's done for decades. To pretend that he's not a difference-maker would be a mistake. Same for an impact player in the case of any of the teams that were evaluated.

But at the same time, again, I want to mention that the five games they lost without him just can't and won't be thrown out. He was absent for nine games. Player availability, we track that very closely just as well through the year.

Q. Joe, I know you've said in that 1 and 4 range, you're protected where you won't be disadvantaged in the first two games. I was wondering if that also plays a role with where teams go, being closer to home? And also, if you're in the 5 or 6, maybe even 7 range, if there's any preference playing closer to home? The reason I ask is Arizona appears to be in that area right now, and maybe a couple other PAC-12 teams, as well.
JOE CASTIGLIONE: Well, first of all, I just want to correct you. That bracketing principle only applies to the first round, not the first two games.

But when it comes to bracketing, geography and conference affiliation dictates many of the decisions we make. The first thing we try to do is keep as many teams as close to home as possible, respect the overall seed list, utilize that to determine the choice of the team and where they will be assigned.

Of course, the overall seed list determines exactly that, and then it's done in sequential order.

Q. When you get down to the 5, 6 range, you're still thinking about that as opposed to who fits in best into that seed line, regardless of where they play? That's still a big consideration?
JOE CASTIGLIONE: Sure. Geography is first. But we may have to move teams based on rematches of the regular-season games, and/or their conference affiliation.

Q. Joe, we hear about top 100 wins, top 50 wins, top 25, then we hear about bad losses. How do you weigh those two metrics, ideas, and which holds greater sway with you? I know you can't necessarily talk about everyone.
JOE CASTIGLIONE: Well, I will say that we try to be more definitive of the quality of the wins. So rather than just say top 100, we break it into groupings, say, top 25, top 50, top 100. So quality wins are very important. You have to prove you can beat good teams.

We also look at where those games are actually held, so winning against good teams at home, winning against good teams on the road. We pay attention to those games that are held at neutral sites, as well.

We think there's a correlation. Beating good teams means you can be successful in the tournament. So winning away from home is something that in my years on the committee has become an important factor to value.

Just to use that phrase you used 'bad losses,' not all losses are equal, if you will. You have to determine, were there circumstances that led to that result.

So, again, where the game was played is important.

Q. My curiosity is I cover Michigan. They have just three top-100 wins. That's obviously something historically the committee has not approved of. They had maybe one team in 10 years. Is that a statistical aberration or is that something that is discussed? Since you changed to RPI, you have not let but one team in all that time, an at-large with that rÃ©sumÃ©. Is that something that's discussed because it's a very low number or is it a coincidence kind of thing?
JOE CASTIGLIONE: I caution you, as we always do, to say that previous years aren't a factor. Each year is very different. In addition, we're using more and more metrics than we were in the past. It isn't just the RPI.

Q. How would you assess Valparaiso, another regular-season champion, lost in the conference tournament?
JOE CASTIGLIONE: Well, we've been watching Valpo throughout the entire year. We know they're a very good team. Once again, I remind you that if they're not included in our initial ballot, which means they have to receive at least three votes, they'll automatically go on the under consideration board as a regular-season champion. That's part of our principles.

They will stay on the board for some time. We know, as we move through the week, we'll have discussion about some of those teams on the under consideration board. Because of that principle I just mentioned, there may be a time where some of them are removed.

But we know they have some quality wins, including the one at Oregon State. They're a team that we've watched and recognize how good they are.

DAVE WORLOCK: Thank you, everyone, for today's call. We'll talk to you Sunday night at 9 p.m. eastern for Joe's post selections teleconference. Thanks for joining us and have a terrific day.

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