NATIONAL COLLEGE ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION MEDIA CONFERENCE

March 14, 2004

Bob Bowlsby

BOB BOWLSBY: Well, we make an attempt to take into account everything that's going on in college basketball, and that certainly includes the games that are played on the last day of the tournament process, conference tournament process. That Big-10 game and that Big-12 game are very difficult. In years when there's a lot riding on it, we put in place the best contingency plans we can, but there arrives a time during the afternoon where we have to complete the seeding process and put the teams on the bracket. We have a great many principles we adhere to, and it's all designed to create fairness in the process and create the best possible tournament we can. The principles and policies have been developed over a long period of time, and you just can't implement those things in a matter of minutes. Any game that gets over later than about 4:00 is going to really be very difficult for us. I'm an employee at one of the institutions of the Big-10, and we all make the considered decision that we're going to play that game at 3:30 and know that there's some downside to it. I assume the Big-12 does likewise. We try and take as much of that information into account as we can, but it's just not possible to take the results of a game that gets over at 5:30 when we need to announce the bracket at 6:00.

BOB BOWLSBY: Let me address the second of those first. We protect the higher seeds in the first round only. We do that exclusively. We try never to have anybody disadvantaged by a home crowd when they're a higher seed. But that policy does not extend to the second round and subsequent rounds. We are going to try and put people as close as home as we possibly can, and we don't protect that crowd situation into the second round. Relative to Utah State, I don't want to get into a lot of specifics about any particular team, but there were 75 teams that had 20 wins or more in this year's tournament, vying for spots in this year's tournament. Unfortunately, we have to get to 65 and they can't all go in. In the final evaluation, we looked at Utah State, and they had only four games against teams in the Top 100, and they were 2-2 in those games. They really didn't appear to make much of an attempt to go out and schedule beyond the games that were scheduled in state with Brigham Young and with Utah. They had an exceptional season. They've had many exceptional seasons consecutively. They tied for their conference championship but lost out to a team with a 190 RPI in a preliminary round. So we compared them very extensively with other institutions that had similar portfolios for the tournament. But in the end there were teams that had better resumes, that had similar numbers of wins, and had done it against better quality competition. Unfortunately, we got to the point where we had a dozen or so institutions vying for eight or nine spots, and there were some that had to fall out.

BOB BOWLSBY: Well, it's certainly all about the body of work for the entire season. There isn't any doubt about that. I don't think the committee was particularly caught up in the fact that they were undefeated, although it makes for a good storyline for people covering the tournament. But St. Joe played the No. 1 non-conference schedule in the country. They didn't just play a good schedule, they played the best schedule based upon our RPI system. I think that is worth something. The Atlantic 10 conference was stronger than it's been in the past. There are four teams in the tournament. All four of them are good teams. And there were a couple that didn't make the tournament that are pretty good teams. We just felt like St. Joe's was altogether representative of those teams that ought to be on the top line, and I think reasonable people can disagree about the four No. 1 seeds. We made a change in the case of Duke after the outcome of the ACC game. Certainly Mississippi State, Oklahoma State, Gonzaga and others could make a case for positioning on line one. But in the final evaluation, we felt like the four that were there represented the best that college basketball had to offer, and I think in all fairness, we have to also admit that, you know, we didn't have the opportunity to know the outcome of the Big-12 final, and didn't feel like we could wait. That's certainly unfortunate, but that's not a decision we make; that's a decision that others make.

BOB BOWLSBY: Yes, that's exactly the reason. We had to put the seeding and bracketing process in place sooner than the end of that tournament game. So the seeding reflects the way they were seeded going in rather than the way the tournament game came out.

BOB BOWLSBY: Well, it's a very good question, and it's one that we pondered frequently during the course of the weekend. The Mountain West is the No. 7 ranked conference in the country. BYU and Utah had good resumes, as did Air Force. I think the thing that carried the day by the time it was all over was Air Force won their league by two full games. They did not play a good non-conference schedule. There isn't any question about that. But, you know, the non-conference schedule many times is the difference between getting in and not getting in. But in our belief, and I think this is where the human factor comes into the process, we just believed that Air Force had a really outstanding year. They had it in a league that has been highly ranked, and was again this year at No. 7. A team that goes through the entire season and plays as well as Air Force plays was deserving of being in the tournament. I think the other piece of the answer to that question is that, you know, we looked at a lot of different institutions that had similar resumes. We don't compare one with just one other. We have usually several in the pool. You know, some excel in certain aspects of their resume, and others excel in other aspects, especially when you get down to those final few teams. It's sometimes so close a call that you can't slide a piece of paper between them. I think the fact they won a conference championship in a high-quality conference was really the thing that carried the day when it was all said and done.

BOB BOWLSBY: The number of wins they had certainly is a factor. There's no doubt about that. But Colorado had one win over a team that's in the tournament field. They were 2-7 against the Top 50. While the Big-12 is a terrific league, year in and year out it's an exceptional league, there are some years when one side of the league isn't as strong as the other side. Several of Colorado's wins came with two wins against particular institutions in the side of the league that wasn't as strong as the other side of the league. They only played Texas once. They played Oklahoma State once. They were not a good road team. You're exactly right, they were in that last group of institutions that we considered. But at the end of the day, they just didn't compare as favorably as those that got in as some of the others that were in the pool.

BOB BOWLSBY: Obviously, Florida State is extremely talented athletically. They're a good basketball team. They're a very young basketball team. We knew that. Coach Hamilton has done a terrific job with this group. They have played extremely well, and yet they were 0 and 8 in the ACC on the road. They went out of the tournament early. You know, we just felt like they were playing a developmental schedule. Their overall schedule was probably not as strong as some that we compared them to. They're a real good example. I mean, we had -- almost everybody that was in the final pool was at 20 wins or more. They were just one of the ones that fell by the wayside. I wish we didn't have to have 75 20-win teams or more. People with some pretty darn good resumes that can play basketball at a high level unfortunately didn't make the field because the field was that strong.

BOB BOWLSBY: I don't remember exactly when Oklahoma ceased to be under consideration. They were not a part of the last dozen or so teams that went out. But Oklahoma got a lot of consideration. We were very much aware of the two critical situations with personnel that they had, the injury to Bookout and then the absence of Jabahri Brown. There's not a better basketball coach in the country than Calvin Sampson. Unfortunately, this team's resume didn't rise to the level of those that got into the tournament.

BOB BOWLSBY: Well, I think people have great respect for Gary Williams and the great job he does at Maryland. There was some consideration given obviously to the strength of the ACC. It was a terrific league this year. There isn't any doubt about that. You know, even Clemson, that finished last in the league, had some big wins at home. So it's going to get anybody's attention when a team plays its way through arguably the toughest conference tournament that there is. I think there was also a recognize, you know, you can be a pretty capable basketball team and play below .500 in the ACC right now. You know, as I said to the earlier question, we thought that Florida State was a good basketball team at times, and they had a 6-10 record, as I recall. I don't think there's any question that on a national scale, there's great recognition of the program in place at Maryland and the work that they've done throughout the season, sometimes with success and sometimes without success. But I'm not sure there's anybody playing better basketball than Maryland right now in the entire country.

BOB BOWLSBY: They absolutely stood on their own merits. We don't go back to previous tournaments. We don't go back to previous seedings. Gonzaga is on the two line because they stood on their own portfolio. Their only losses this season were to St. Joe and Stanford. Until two weeks ago, both of those were the only undefeated teams in the country. We think a lot of Gonzaga. I think this is the best team they've had at Gonzaga. They demonstrated in the pre-season that they can play against national competition. We think they are -- it is altogether justifiable to have Gonzaga on the two line.

BOB BOWLSBY: Started on the board for the Big-10 or started on the board overall? Well, we started out with a pool that was probably in the 60s for the at-large, the 34 at-large positions. There were several more Big-10 institutions that were on the board at one time, on the nomination board - I believe four more. My own institution was up there, Michigan obviously was up there, and a couple others. We were really looking as a committee for one of those teams to play themselves into the final. I think there were a couple of candidates that maybe didn't have to win the league tournament, but they certainly had to demonstrate some success in the tournament. But that didn't happen. There was a fairly significant separation between those three teams at the top and the rest of the league.

BOB BOWLSBY: Yes, they would have.

BOB BOWLSBY: No. To answer the second one first, we don't talk about second-round match-ups at all. There are some situations where we have to be careful, like BYU, for instance. We need to make sure that we have them playing on the right days of the week. But, no, we don't look at second-round match-ups. And, yes, we were very impressed with UConn. I think when you see what Ben Gordon did stepping up in those games, it was obvious that UConn is a pretty good basketball team, and they had to win a couple of games without their superstar. They did that. Then they came and won a huge game against an opponent they've seen a lot of. We just thought a combination of being 2-1 against Pitt, having played a pretty good schedule, and the fact that they won late in the tournament. The other thing was that bore on it, in all honesty, is Pitt played a non-conference schedule that was ranked somewhere around 250. In terms of sequencing, that probably caused us -- those things all combined to cause us to put UConn just a notch ahead of Pitt.

BOB BOWLSBY: I believe, maybe Bill Hancock can help me with this, I believe we had 20 in on the first at-large ballot.

BOB BOWLSBY: Then, of course, just to clarify how we do that, anybody that isn't already on an automatic qualification, hasn't already qualified by virtue of their tournament goes on that at-large board. As the weekend progresses and as teams win their tournaments, if they're on the at-large board, they're moving over to the automatic qualifier board. When I say there were 20 out there, that's 20 that had unanimous support. That number that gets moved over is pretty substantial, as well. That doesn't necessarily mean there were only 14 spots left at the beginning of the weekend.

BOB BOWLSBY: We've had as many as 25 or 26, I think, on the first ballot. We've had as few as 16 or 17. I think there were more teams under consideration this year than we've maybe had in the years that I've been involved. But I don't know how that compares over the long haul. You'd have to ask Bill or somebody that's been at this longer than I have.

BOB BOWLSBY: Well, I don't know that I have an answer for you on that. Is that -- well, you know, we may have violated our own principle there. I don't know. What's your reaction to that, Bill?

BOB BOWLSBY: I didn't notice that.

BOB BOWLSBY: I should have clarified that earlier. The reason we do that is because lines one through four -- lines four and five are pretty similar. I didn't notice that North Carolina was down on the sixth line. Thanks, Bill.

BOB BOWLSBY: That's a difficult question because I don't really know what's going on in the minds of every one of the committee members at the time that we're doing our deliberations. I'm just going to take a stab that almost every one of our committee members uses every one of the tools that we have at our disposal. We spend a lot of time looking at things like conference schedules. You know, if a conference plays a full double round-robin, that's a far different matter than if they have three two-plays and 10 one-plays. There were some teams in the past, they didn't play some opponents at all. That makes a very different situation relative to conference schedule. So we spend a lot of time looking at how teams did against people that finished above them in the league, and how they did below them. We take a lot of time looking at how they did against other potential tournament teams. We look at how they played on the road. We look at the RPI, obviously. We look at the strength of schedule numbers. We spend a lot of time looking at dozens of different methods for comparing. But more than anything else, what we do is try and find out ways to see if there are -- if the issue can be settled on the court. Where we have good comparative data, three games between two conference members during the course of a year, perhaps, we're going to rely very heavily on those head-to-head match-ups because we want basketball to decide who plays in the tournament and how teams are compared one to the other. Some of the statistical models and some of the other comparative data are things that we rely on as fallback measures on some occasions because many times there are better, more reliable ways to compare two or even a group of institutions.

BOB BOWLSBY: Well, I wasn't in the game today, so I probably like the money more than I like the flexibility. We've talked about it at some length. Obviously our television partners like it where it's at. I think there are compromises to be made. So, you know, we signed up for it. That's what we do. Relative to Oklahoma State, I don't know that I'm prepared to speculate whether they would have been in or not in. To use your words, they certainly would have been a principal candidate, and they would have been considered as such among two or three other principal candidates. That number is down a little bit from the beginning of the weekend, obviously, because some people help their situations and some people hurt their situation. But, yes, it's fair to say that we would have given very serious consideration and compared Oklahoma State along with Mississippi State and Gonzaga and Connecticut to the ones that were on the one line. Yes, that would have taken place.

BOB BOWLSBY: We have a subgroup of our committee that spends its time on the bottom four lines. People are always surprised when we say that because they think it starts at line one, we throw those ones on the bottom line together. But we look very carefully, I would say almost as carefully, to that bottom four lines as we do to the top. Who goes on 13, 14, 15, 16 and the opening round game is based on exactly the same comparative process that we use in the other parts of the bracket. That's how it worked out.

BOB BOWLSBY: That's your characterization on them being the last team in. I wouldn't necessarily divulge that they were the last people in. They were compared to a group of people, a group of institutions that looked a lot like they did. As I answered a little earlier, some had strengths in some areas and some had strengths in others. In UTEP's case, they were one of among several schools that looked a lot alike. They tied for the WAC championship. As a result of that, UTEP and Nevada were both kind of considered along in the same batch for quite awhile. Basically they played themselves into the tournament. They played themselves to the tournament final and tied for the regular-season championship. They had a good resume. They ended up being first among equals in terms of who got in.

BOB BOWLSBY: I'm glad you asked that question. I was hoping somebody would. The injuries are always a difficult thing for us. We certainly can't ignore them. But we worked very hard not to evaluate LSU based solely upon the injury. They lost six out of their last seven. There are differing reports as to how much disability there was before he actually went out permanently in I think it was the next-to-the-last game. But we have to take all of those things into consideration. We look at how LSU did the last 10 games, how they did throughout the season. We recognize that there is some element of punishing the kids on the team because the group that they go into the tournament with is not the group that they played with throughout the year. I wouldn't hang that on one individual. But we do have to evaluate how they did in the last 10 games, how they did throughout the conference season. We have to use the same tools to evaluate them that we do others. In our opinion, there were 34 better teams than LSU for this year's tournament.

BOB BOWLSBY: Well, I think over time they will settle into the system. What we really were seeking to do is, one, have flexibility for the committee to move people around and get the best match-ups. The other is, we intended, of course, to make sure that we have the opportunity to have the region that has the No. 1 seed paired against the region that has the No. 4 seed, and the region with the 2 seed against the region with the 3 seed. The designation of using the name of the cities instead of directions is actually intended to make it less confusing because we don't have to worry about the regions in which institutions reside, but rather we can send them to their closest region. That is exactly what we did last year with regard to Kentucky. The Minneapolis region was the closest one, but it was called it the Midwest. To some that didn't make sense. We hope that people will settle into a comfort level with the designation of each of the cities, know exactly where people are going and who's seeded where, where they'll be playing.