NATIONAL COLLEGE ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION MEDIA CONFERENCE

March 12, 2003

Jim Livengood

JIM LIVENGOOD: Well, Bill, as most know, they're very, very important, conference tournaments. We've seen some great games, and we're going to see some more tonight, tomorrow, and on through the week. But it's also very, very important, Bill, to keep in mind that we do balance, the committee balances the entire season. We look at nonconference, conference, certainly all of the factors that we've talked about before. But conference tournaments play a big part in it. Where our charge right now is to continue to make sure that we focus on everything we possibly can know about each of the teams.

JIM LIVENGOOD: Well, I don't know that it puts a black mark on anything. It's just very unfortunate. This time of year right now we tend to focus, as most of you do as well, on this great tournament we have that's going to be coming up and all the wonderful experiences for the young men and women who are going to be playing college basketball and playing in the NCAA tournament, and our particular tournament. We're very excited. So these are unfortunate things, but we need to move on. And our charge, again, is just to have and provide the very best tournament we possibly can.

JIM LIVENGOOD: Well, I think the issue was, is giving teams an advantage or disadvantage with regards to where they were placed in the bracket. Certainly, there were examples last year of where it appeared that the teams might have gained a little bit of an advantage. The committee takes it very serious. We're going to spend an awful lot of time with regard to the bracketing process to make sure that we don't disadvantage teams. Remember that the new bracketing process that we're using right now, the idea is to keep teams closer to home to allow for student athletes and fans and so on to be able to see the team play. Not everybody can fall into that. But, again, we would hope the process would get better every year. Our charge right now is to make this the best ever.

JIM LIVENGOOD: We do. The NCAA has those figures. We've looked at most of those. Again, there was a substantial savings. Probably as much as anything else, though, in terms of more people being able to see teams and those things and, additionally, a great deal of less travel for student athletes and fans. So, yes, there are statistics available and the NCAA has those. But it was very successful, but it can be improved on as well.

JIM LIVENGOOD: Well, I would have an opinion - a very strong one - with regards to my roll with the other hat on as the Director of Athletics at the University of Arizona. But I think it might be inappropriate for me to have an opinion as the Chair of the Men's Basketball Committee. The tournament is a once-in-a-lifetime, maybe several-times-in-a-lifetime dream for a young basketball player. So that's a very, very strong disincentive. I really do think it would be inappropriate for me to make a comment in light of now my charge, and our charge - excuse me. Ours is to select teams and make sure that this is the best possible tournament we could have. On another day I would be happy to give you my opinion as the Director at Arizona.

JIM LIVENGOOD: I don't think so. I think one of the things, and if we look back at past records and past history, I think that's very consistent in terms of this time. In fact - and I don't have it sitting right in front of me but certainly will have soon - I think if we look back, we probably might be in a little bit better shape than we have been in some years with regard to attendance. The attendance tends to increase as we get closer, obviously the publicity this week, and certainly with the selection process and the announcement on Sunday night and those kind of things. It's my hope and certainly our goal that every facility we use would be full. So I'm not willing yet to say that we're going to have, when the tournament starts, the opening round, certainly a week from yesterday in Dayton, then the tournament, actually the next part of it, a week from tomorrow, I think our facilities will be full. So I don't think we're in bad shape at all.

JIM LIVENGOOD: Well, the committee has made a decision in the past, and I think we'll continue hopefully to go in that direction, of trying to move the opening-round games, certainly the first and second round, regionals, to as many different sites as we possibly can. So we move them geographically as well as in different facilities. With that in mind, we're just going to have to see. The first priority certainly would be we'd want to have a full facility. It makes for a better tournament, it makes for a better experience for our student athletes and everybody concerned. I think kind of as we move forward, I'd want to be careful about not speculating whether or not playing in domes would be good or bad right now at this point

JIM LIVENGOOD: Thank you, Bill.

JIM LIVENGOOD: Well, the first part of that, absolutely. The committee is aware of that. We have an incredible amount of information that we're sent by schools; very strong compliments to athletic directors and certainly to coaches of providing that information. It's very hard, I don't think we'd see the time when a team that had some games that were close and didn't go their way in some cases because of an injury or because a player didn't play, we have that information. And so we have everything available in those kind of things. Is that a factor? Sure, it's a factor. Everything - our charge, Bud, as you well know, is to try to make sure that we have as much information, everything we possibly can, on every given team. As we go through that, those become very important parts of information, particularly when teams are close and it's very hard to distinguish one team from another or two teams from three or whatever. Those become very important parts of information. I can't think of a situation in my three years on the committee where we've not had information with regards to an important part of the team, of a young man who did not play.

JIM LIVENGOOD: What's a bubble, Bud?

JIM LIVENGOOD: No, there isn't any take. Again, the charge of the committee, as you and I have talked, the charge is to select the best 34 teams. That line is there. It's not going to extend beyond that. Again, the focus of the committee is to make sure that we do everything in our power to make sure the information is there, and we will spend tremendous amounts of time going through everything about every team. At the end of the day we need to obviously make a decision. Some teams fall in, and some don't. We'd certainly like to have everybody; that's just not the way the system is designed. The important thing is to make sure everybody is given a very fair chance and everybody is looked at exactly the same way. That is the focus.

JIM LIVENGOOD: I apologize, I think I probably better stay away from that, even in a hypothetical situation because it's so closely related to a member institution. That part of it would lead me down a path. I understand and I appreciate your question. I just think it really would be inappropriate for me to comment on where they might be or what.

JIM LIVENGOOD: Well, at this time, we obviously - the NCAA certainly is gathering information trying to make sure that everything is known about everything - not just Georgia, but everything. And, again, I would not want to speculate on anything connected with that situation until all the facts are known and everything is out.

JIM LIVENGOOD: They're not prohibited from playing anywhere. The only prohibition that we have, in other words a team being prohibited, would be if that institution has played in that facility three times during the year. In the cases you've mentioned, that probably isn't likely to have happened. But, no, they're not at all. The charge of the committee is to make sure that we don't put those schools in the Top 4 or 5 lines at a disadvantage. We're going to have to spend a lot of time on that. That, obviously, comes into our seeding and, more importantly, our bracketing when we get all done of making sure that we're looking everywhere, remembering that our principles sometimes don't allow some things that might be very obvious to everyone, don't allow us to maybe do that. We do have a set of principles and guidelines that we follow, and we're very diligent in that. We don't change that unless we change it the summer before. We'll just have to see. As you well know, the geography on these sites change every year, so we have a different set of circumstances when you try to relate last year to this year and so on.

JIM LIVENGOOD: It's impossible for me to speculate on that, even from a theoretical or feasibility or anything in terms of anything connected with that situation right now.

JIM LIVENGOOD: Well, the bracket that we put out Sunday night is the bracket that we intend to play certainly on Tuesday and Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday the following week. I'm not speculating on anything. That's what we're looking at doing this week, and that's what we've always done.

JIM LIVENGOOD: Absolutely. Again, I know you heard me say it, and I apologize for not being able to get in any more conversation, but I just really cannot speculate on anything that ...

JIM LIVENGOOD: That's correct. That is correct.

JIM LIVENGOOD: That is correct.

JIM LIVENGOOD: No. The committees in the past, and certainly this current committee, does not factor those in at all. In other words, the committee does not recognize per se a forfeiture. We recognize the game as having been played, and the game has a winner and a loser and we go from there. That's really the way it's been for quite a number of years.

JIM LIVENGOOD: Absolutely not.