NCAA 2024 BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP MEDIA CONFERENCE

March 17, 2024

Charles McClelland

News Conference

Q. Can you go into Texas a little bit? I think they were widely projected as an 8, maybe a 9. Obviously they end up at 7. What went into the deliberation after they lost earlier in the Big 12 tournament that ultimately made them a 7?

CHARLES McCLELLAND: Well, there were a couple of things that we looked at from a committee perspective overall, and one of the things that we looked at was their predictors. Something that also stood out was the strength of schedule. They had some very quality wins. They had a decent non-conference schedule.

Overall we just took a look at Texas, and as we verified through our processes that the matrixes were pointing to a direction that we felt that Texas fell within that seed line, the committees looked at it, we made our vote, and that's ultimately where Texas fell.

Q. I'm curious as to the timing. As we know, there were quite a few upsets on Saturday. I'm curious how that affects your timing of adding in the final at-large teams. I know the voting -- obviously an awful lot of voting is done Thursday and Friday, as well.

CHARLES McCLELLAND: Yeah, so when we come in on that Wednesday, we take our initial ballot, and on that Wednesday, we put 23 teams into the tournament. So over the course of Thursday, Friday and Saturday, we filled the remainder of those slots.

Again, one of the things that was somewhat of an anomaly this year was the amount of bids that got stolen from us.

As we go through the process, we stop periodically to make sure that we don't get ahead of ourselves, to make sure that we don't put too many teams in and occupy those slots.

We methodically went through the process. We stopped. We put teams in. We had an opportunity to take a look at some of the results and then reseeded some of those teams, and then we put more teams into the process.

It's really a process that starts on Wednesday, and quite honestly, the last group of teams that we put in was late last night, early this morning.

Q. That would be obviously Virginia, Colorado State, the last couple?

CHARLES McCLELLAND: Yeah, Virginia State being the last team that was in, absolutely -- Virginia, I apologize. Virginia.

Q. St. John's was a team that wasn't in the First Four out but they had obviously appeared in a bunch of mock brackets. How did the committee evaluate their standing there?

CHARLES McCLELLAND: Well, a tremendous amount of discussion on St. John's. We had to deliberate over their team sheet days and days and hours all the way up to 2:00 this morning.

Again, when you start to get to those bubble teams, a lot of the resumes start to look the same, and from a St. John's perspective, they had six wins in Quad 2. They had a very good predictive matrix, but they were 4-10 in Quad 1 and had seven opportunities at top 3 teams from the Big East and just went 1-6 in those games with a home win over Creighton in a non-conference and no significant non-conference wins to note.

Again, when we start taking a look at St. John's, in comparison to a lot of those other bubble teams, we take all of the matrix into consideration. We take the games into consideration and their 12 members. We look at all of those, we plug them in, and ultimately each matrix, each opportunity for a team is judged differently by the committee, and that's why we had 12 once the votes were submitted. That's how teams get in, but we had a lot of conversations about St. John's.

Once again, ultimately the fact that we lost five opportunities through those bid steals, it made it a very difficult process for us.

Q. What did it come down to in terms of the overall No. 1 with UConn and Purdue and Houston?

CHARLES McCLELLAND: Well, again, UConn has been in that No. 1 seed line pretty much the entire process. When we did our top 16 unveil, UConn was a part of that.

Now, there were three teams that left no doubt about their place among the four best teams in the country. Despite Houston and Purdue losing over the weekend, that didn't change their standing as a No. 1 seed. With UConn winning the Big East title, it provided the committee with the conviction that the Huskies were the No. 1 overall seed. Houston and Purdue were neck-and-neck for the overall 2 seed, but the Cougars got the nod based upon 16 Quad 1 wins.

Again, these teams have been battling each other in the committee room for that overall No. 1, 2, 3 and 4, and ultimately UConn came 1, Houston came 2.

Q. Wondering about Michigan State. I believe we just saw a reveal of the field of 68, and Michigan State, I believe, was the top No. 9 seed. Wondering what led to that and what Michigan State did to kind of solidify their place in the tournament.

CHARLES McCLELLAND: Well, one of the things that we took a look at with Michigan State was they had the 14th overall ranking of strength of schedule. They really challenged themselves in the non-conference. They have three wins. Obviously in Quad 1 they were 6-5. In Quad 2 they were clean, in Quad 3, Quad 4. Their resume was impressive.

When you start to look at it, they had 14 losses, but we felt like the challenging schedule, their ability to be able to play those teams -- they had non-conference wins over Baylor. They had non-conference wins over Indiana State and Butler, and again, we just felt that given where we are in college basketball with the parity and the fact that Michigan State went out, played those games, won those games, had a significant non-conference strength of schedule, it gave them the nod on that seed line.

Q. This is the first time that a team inside the top 30 of the NET has missed the tournament. Just wanted to ask you what the datapoints were in conversations surrounding Indiana State and then New Mexico, as well, who of course we found out became a bid stealer on that other side.

CHARLES McCLELLAND: Yeah, from Indiana State's perspective, they're in the 40 range in most of their metrics. A little higher and others. Their two worse losses can be explained with an injury to their second leading scorer and rebounder. They're an elite scoring team. They shoot it well from the field, from the free-throw line and from the three-point line. But unfortunately they only had one win in Quadrant 1 in five chances. They lost two or three games to the other top teams in their country, which was Drake, and lost their two best non-conference opportunities.

Again, I go back and I reiterate, the fact that we had five opportunities for teams to get in taken away, and over the past three years, there's only been two in a three-year time frame. We had five this year. Again, it was a very difficult process. But it wasn't as much as we did not put Indiana State in as we just ran out of opportunities to fill some of those teams that normally would be in the tournament.

Q. My question is regarding Arizona. What went into the decision of making them between that final 1 seed and a 2 seed. How big was that Pac-12 tournament loss in factoring that decision?

CHARLES McCLELLAND: Well, we always talk about it's the entirety of the season, and Arizona, Houston, UConn, Purdue have been on our board, and actually there were six teams that were vying for that No. 1 seed, which included Arizona.

But we take the overall entirety of the season, and from that standpoint, we had to take a look at Arizona and we had to take a look at all of those other teams, as well.

From a standpoint of the non-conference, Bama, Duke, Michigan State, Wisconsin, we had to take a look at that. We had some really good wins, but overall, we just gave the nod to those other four teams on that seed line. Again, taking nothing away from the season that Arizona had, but when we put all of those factors in, when we looked at all of the matrix, Arizona fell on that No. 2 seed.

Q. I think what fans get confused about, you mentioned a few qualifications with Quad 1 wins, Quad 2 wins, and then you see a team like Florida Atlantic with only two Quad 1 wins, Virginia with two Quad 1 wins. I know there are a lot of different qualifications and it's very subjective, but I think the winning part is what fans kind of see maybe as undervalued in the ultimate conversation.

CHARLES McCLELLAND: Yeah, Florida Atlantic, 5-8, so you brought up winning. They've done that at a very high clip. As a matter of fact, Florida Atlantic have eight wins in Quad 2. They went from one conference to another. They're in the American conference now, and they played a consistent brand of basketball.

The one thing I want to point out, and we talk about quadrants, we talk about all of these different matrix, but there are several things that go into this process, and when you start getting into that 8 seed, 9 seed, a lot of these resumes start to look the same, and you start to differentiate those resumes.

It's applied across the board, but at the same time, you have to make sure that you do what's supposed to be done, and one thing that I would say about Florida Atlantic, they beat Arizona and Texas A&M, Virginia Tech and Butler, so they had some really good wins, and all of those wins are taken into consideration.

Ultimately what we say about this tournament, it is who you play, where you play and what you do as a result.

Q. And Virginia? Virginia also had only two Quad 1s.

CHARLES McCLELLAND: Yes, from a Virginia standpoint, we took a look at Virginia, with Virginia being the last team in, and we had to evaluate Virginia over all of those teams, and some of the things that we looked at with Virginia, they were only 2-7 in Quad 1, as you stated, but they were 8-3 in Quad 2 and they were clean in Quadrants 3 and 4. They had really good results metrics. They were third in scoring defense and non-conference wins over Texas A&M and Florida.

Again, when you get to the back end of these teams and you're comparing all of these like teams, you have to look at the entirety of the season.

Yes, Virginia only had two wins in Quad 1, but I would humbly submit that is a reason (audio glitch) higher in the process and higher in the seeding.