NATIONAL COLLEGE ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION MEDIA CONFERENCE

March 13, 2005

Bob Bowlsby

BOB BOWLSBY: No, it really wasn't. We start out on line 1, and we attempt to balance the bracket as best we can. We allocate the sites. We try and keep the No. 1 seeds in their region first, then we allocate from there. But Indianapolis seemed to make sense, and it really didn't have anything to do with their loss in the final. Although had they been a 1 seed, we certainly would have tried to send them to someplace in order based upon that first seed.

BOB BOWLSBY: No, not really. I mean, as you accurately noted, Nashville was the other logical option. Obviously it's a big venue, and Kentucky follows well. With Illinois here, we expect the crowds to be good. But when we have games like that, we try and accommodate them. I think actually one of the things we've done is created a little bit of a problem for the people in Charlotte because with the two No. 1 seeds there, obviously it's going to be a prime ticket. One of our first principles is to try to keep people close to home, and that's what we've done.

BOB BOWLSBY: In Iowa State's case, they actually came in as a 10 seed. Due to bracketing considerations, we moved them to a 9 line. Interestingly enough, the other one that we moved down in the same transaction was the University of Iowa. They were in as a 9 seed and we moved them to the 10 line. That's one of our principles. We retain the prerogative to move up or down on the bracket in order to make the thing fit together because, as you may be aware, we keep teams apart from the same conference until the regional finals. We have a number of principles that we employ. We just do what we need to do. Iowa State was playing very well at the end of the year, in a good conference. They had some big road victories. They just demonstrated that they had some momentum. I think they distinguished themselves at a time that the stretch run was underway. Relative to the Mid-America Conference, I think your assessment is exactly correct. There were a number of very good teams in the Mid-America, and I think that the number may even be larger than we actually considered than you identified. I think at one time we may have had five or six teams under some level of surveillance. This might be a good time to interject that we had over 70 institutions with 20 wins or more. It's the most ever. It's the first time I think we only have 11 institutions, if I'm not mistaken, that have RPIs of a hundred or more in this tournament and only one team with a losing record. There were a whole bunch of people that were under consideration that looked a lot like those MAC schools, 16, 17, 18, 19 wins. It was a very difficult selection and seeding process. We had anticipated that the selection process would not be as difficult as it was. We anticipated additionally that the seeding process would be very difficult, which it was. And so in the end evaluation, we just felt that there were 34 institutions that had better portfolios than the ones you mentioned.

BOB BOWLSBY: I think it's a very good question. The important thing to remember is that conference games are just like every other game. It's a matter of who you play and how you do and where you play the game, those sorts of things. We try and dissect conference records very carefully. But in the end evaluation, they're just part of the 28 or 29 or 30 games, whatever the case may be. An institution has never gotten into the NCAA tournament with 15 wins. I think that Indiana played an excellent schedule, and I think that they were like some others that were in the hunt coming into this last week. They had an opportunity to play themselves in. I think most of us felt like the four or five game in the Big-10 was going to be a great basketball game, and it turned out to not be. I think, just as with the last question, ultimately there were too many losses and not enough wins. That's how it worked. I would prefer not to comment on Iowa's situation. I wasn't in the room when any of the discussion took place. I didn't participate in any of the votes. I really can't tell you what the critical factors were there.

BOB BOWLSBY: It's a very good question and one we knew would come up. Maryland is one of the really terrific basketball programs in the country, there isn't any doubt about that. I think Gary Williams would tell you that this isn't one of his better teams, although they have played some great games. Their strength of non-conference schedule is not particularly good, and they were 2-7 as I recall in their non-conference season. As you accurately noted, they had a couple big wins over Duke, including one at Cameron. But ultimately the number of wins and the significance of the wins just didn't match up. You know, I think I would be less than honest if I didn't admit to you that there is a certain amount of entitledness, you know, somebody has a season where they win 25 games, maybe it's not against the same kind of competition that Maryland plays every day, but I think people that go out and try and play schools and play a good non-conference schedule have good success against that and their conference schedule. I think the committee looks at that favorably and seeks to reward as much as they can. Now, that isn't to say you're going to take an inferior team who just happens to have a lot of wins against a weak schedule. It doesn't work that way. Ultimately I think there were just 34 that we felt had more momentum and had better portfolios than the University of Maryland.

BOB BOWLSBY: I would say that Louisville is a tremendous basketball program, and they've had a great year. They won the regular season, they won the post-season, and we felt like we gave them some credit for doing both of those things. But when you look at who's on the first three lines, it's a pretty competitive lot. You know, the Big-12 tournament champion is there. Oklahoma State was considered a possibility for the top line themselves for a lot of the year. The Big East champion is on that line. Washington was there at one time. Now Kentucky is there. Wake Forest is there, long considered to be a contender for the top line. Then Oklahoma, the regular season Big-12 champion is on line 3. Gonzaga, who has wins over Washington and Oklahoma State, you know, they may have a case for being higher than the 3 line. Then you got Arizona and Kansas. You know, when you get right down to it, we got four slots on every line, and I suspect the University of Kansas is wondering about a 3 seed, too. Ultimately, we just go down line by line and our collective opinion was that we wouldn't take anybody off of those first three lines to put anybody on line 4 out there.

BOB BOWLSBY: We did not have any correspondence with the University of Illinois. They were, of course, there preparing for a game and playing. We didn't do that. To tell you the truth, I don't know what day they played. Are there on a Thursday/Saturday? I suppose that's something we could have done, but we didn't.

BOB BOWLSBY: It was a big headache. Let me start by answering the second question first. We had about five different scenarios, I suppose, five or six different scenarios involving -- most of it was involving four teams. We had a lot of either/or type situations. If this happens, then we're going to do this. If both of these things happen, then we're going to do that. Some years we're very successful in putting contingency plans together. This year we were able to do that. Other years we aren't able to put contingency plans together. Even with all the technology we have at our disposal, and it's very significant, the NCAA staff has done a wonderful job of developing a program or a number of programs to help us do our job, but even with that, with the difficulty, the seeding, wanting to make sure that we get the bracket right, we didn't get finished until about 5:15. I mean, we were running in the 11th hour in order to get things done. A big part of it was because of those contingency plans.

BOB BOWLSBY: Indiana was nominated the first day, and they stayed on the nomination board throughout the process. I didn't mean to imply that there was anything magic about 15, 16, 17, any of that. I just simply noted nobody had gotten in with that in the past, which that isn't particularly germane except that it gives you a benchmark of sorts. We didn't have any magic number. We never do. Many have thought through the years that 20 wins was somehow magical. If 20 wins was the cutoff, we would have been six over right away this year. It doesn't work that way.

BOB BOWLSBY: We have somebody -- each one of the nine other committee members other than myself each have surveillance responsibilities for three or four leagues. The person that had the Atlantic-10 made a full injury report to us. Saint Joe's, as I said about Indiana, was on the nomination board and stayed there till the very end. Ultimately it was the same situation we get into just about every year, and that is we have, you know, five or six fifth- or sixth-place teams in some of the major conferences, and we have some runners-up from some of the so-called mid-majors. We go through the process of grinding and grinding and comparing and trying to look at teams that look an awful lot alike. You try -- the differences are so slight that it's very difficult to break those ties. It's a time-consuming and grueling process. But Saint Joe's was certainly under consideration every step of the way, and we took into account every bit of information we had on them.

BOB BOWLSBY: Well, I don't want to characterize discussions on any particular institution. Let it suffice to say that our committee members are very thorough in their surveillance of the institutions under consideration.

BOB BOWLSBY: Well, it's consistent with our principles. We wanted to be able to -- we do that by seed. So the highest seed gets sent there first. In this case, it was Kansas, and then Oklahoma State was next. We have a set of principles that are published and available, if you want access to them, on the NCAA website.

BOB BOWLSBY: I'm sorry. What was the question?

BOB BOWLSBY: No. We had made the decision that Oklahoma State was going to be on the 2 line. It was based on a variety of different information. But that was one where we didn't have a contingency plan in place because we'd made the decision there, as we had with Illinois, that were they to lose today in the championship, that we were comfortable leaving them on line 1.

BOB BOWLSBY: Conference strength always plays in. We have a conference rating, 1 through 31. It's not something that we -- because it's based on the RPI, we use the aggregate data, and we occasionally look at it. You know, if a conference is seventh versus 14th, a lot of other things look the same in terms of number of wins, strength of non-conference schedule, some of those kinds of things, we use it as a tiebreaker. We use it in some other various ways to help us in the process. But, you know, if one conference is fourth and one conference is fifth, it isn't a tool that's particularly useful.

BOB BOWLSBY: I think we're always looking for institutions that have momentum. It's probably more art than science in terms of how much momentum you have. I don't know that there's a magic formula, in the last 10 games, you have to win so many of the 10. But we certainly look at the season in segments. If you're a world-beater in December and, you know, you're kind of stumbling into March, that plays into our consideration. You know, we try not to place any more importance on the conference games -- I mean, on the conference tournament games than we do on other games throughout the season. But the fact is, they are a good measure of how you're playing at the end of a season. And also frequently they're good tiebreakers because teams may have split during the season. This is the rubber match that decides who wins the most games between the two. You know, we look at the entire body of work.

BOB BOWLSBY: They were pretty solid because both of them had had good years. In both cases, they went out and played people. They played good non-conference schedules, they had success against those non-conference schedules. They also had success during their regular season. You know, I don't think in either case were they widely considered to be out of the tournament.

BOB BOWLSBY: Well, it's one of the top five conferences, it has been all year. Washington won the post-season tournament, and Arizona won the regular season. You know, I think they have demonstrated that not only through who they've played and beat in the non-conference schedule, but they played very well during their conference season. They've played well in the post-season tournament. They have had an RPI that is near the top the entire year. I just think they're a very deserving No. 1 seed.

BOB BOWLSBY: They were in the last group. I don't want to characterize how many were in that pool. As I described earlier, it's typically seven to ten teams that all look an awful lot alike. I think there were probably a number of factors. But one of the things that I think probably lifted them, when you compared them to DePaul, for instance, was the two head-to-head wins.

BOB BOWLSBY: Those kinds of things never hurt. There isn't any question about that.

BOB BOWLSBY: We had Duke on the top line going into today. There were, as I mentioned, several contingencies. A loss by Duke could have very well taken them off the top line. Depending on what other things happened, there were some scenarios where Wake Forest could have ended up back up there.

BOB BOWLSBY: Well, I think how they've played at the end of the season was a part of that. They lost on a last-second shot against Wake a week ago. They came in and they played a great game against Duke. They played a great game against Wake. We just ultimately got to the point where we felt like North Carolina State was one of the 34 teams that we wanted in the tournament.

BOB BOWLSBY: I think under the former bracketing system, that wouldn't have been possible. So the possibility for two No. 1's in one site has only existed for about three or four years -- three years. What was the other part of your question?

BOB BOWLSBY: We viewed it for what it was. He didn't play and they lost. I don't know that you can do anything else with it. We can only deal with what information we have. I don't think it's possible to speculate what his impact would have been if he would have been there. You know, we're not going to go back and look at how many points he averaged. That's just neither here nor there. He wasn't able to play for them and as a result, the team didn't achieve what they wanted to. We certainly took it into account, but as we're seeding the team going forward with the recognition that he's going to be with them, we certainly take that into account as we assess their ability to play their way through the tournament.

BOB BOWLSBY: Well, it was simply an assessment that BC had struggled in the second half of the season, especially the last three weeks, and that UConn was playing very well. I think the placement reflected the fact that they did have a share of the regular-season title. In a prominent conference like the Big East, that representative or those representatives are typically somewhere in the top 4 lines. They seem to have a different profile right now. UConn seems to be on the upswing, and BC was struggling a little bit. But obviously both of them are tremendous basketball teams. As I mentioned in one of the earlier questions, we only have so many spots on lines 1, 2 and 3. There are some terrific basketball teams that are on lines 4, 5 and 6.

BOB BOWLSBY: Well, West Virginia's play during the tournament certainly bore on their seeding. I don't think there's any question that they improved their stock by the opportunity that was presented to them. On the other hand, you know, probably, to be honest, Notre Dame didn't need more than maybe one game in the tournament, although I'm just guessing at that. But the fact is, they played a schedule that was -- a non-conference schedule that was in the high 200s, and they had 17 wins, and they were 5-5 in the last 10 games. I think they lost four out of their last five. You know, that isn't a profile that causes the committee to feel like they have a lot of momentum. You know, there again, Mike Brey does a terrific job at Notre Dame. I wish we could put all the teams in that are, indeed, worthy. But with 70 teams with 20 wins or more, you know, we get to the point where some get in and some don't get in.

BOB BOWLSBY: Well, that's a good question. Buffalo was on the board till the very end. They've had a tremendous year. It looked early on in that game like they were going to run away with it. They were up by 18, I think, right after the beginning of the second half. Ohio came back and did a great job and got a last-second win. I think there were a lot of teams that looked a lot alike in the Mid-America. Buffalo had a tremendous year. Ultimately we just felt, you know, they had an RPI that was up in the 50 range, and their average win was over a 167 RPI. You know, we get to the point where we're slicing and dicing in terms of who's played the best schedule and how they've done against it and where they've played and what they've done with the games they have some control over. Ultimately we just felt like there were 34 that deserved to be in more than the ones that were left out.

BOB BOWLSBY: Yeah, we worked hard on that. In fact, it may be the part of the bracketing process that we took the most time on. Because of the number of teams and all the principles that we use and our need to separate teams as far as we could through the bracket, we worked on getting some more local teams there and ultimately we just couldn't do it. That's because of adherence to the principles that we have. We put together the best teams we could in Cleveland. There were some that were self-evident that would have been great to have there. Because of putting teams on the bracket, we just couldn't make it work. As I said earlier, we didn't do as good a job this year with the geography as we've done as some years in the past, and I think that's just because there's so many good teams up and down the line and the difficulty the seeding was what it was. We certainly tried to do it, however.

BOB BOWLSBY: I don't know if it's a record, but my blood pressure was going up with every five-minute period that we were waiting. We were not getting the opportunity to get prepared for the things we had to do a little later on. We're in the Top 3. That's good. Too bad, I was hoping to be on line 2 (laughter).

BOB BOWLSBY: We don't do very much of that. Obviously, we had it come up this time around. We really want to make sure that we've got the right people on lines 1, but we also have to make sure we got the right ones on 2, 3 and 4. If that part of it falls apart and we don't have the best teams separated, then the fairness of the tournament really is called into question. So if we were rock solid that the best three teams in the country were 1, 2 and 3 in the RPI and in our subjective evaluations of it, I have no doubt that we would put three teams from the same league or four teams from the same league, if that was possible. I can't see it ever happening. But our task is to put the best people there and to separate them. So if that's the way it worked out, we'd do it.

BOB BOWLSBY: Well, Virginia Tech was another institution that was on the board for a lot of the consideration. I think, you know, they certainly had some big wins, wins over Duke and Georgia Tech. Their strength of schedule, however, was 307. That certainly doesn't bode well. They played North Carolina and Wake just once each, and didn't win either of them. You know, I think ultimately the 15 wins was low, and the general strength of the non-conference schedule was poor, and I think the committee consistently looked at the number of wins, but also who the wins were against. I think over the last four or five years, we've tried to send a clear message that if you're going to go out and play a non-conference schedule that is 200 or above, you're probably going to end up getting -- you don't get penalized for it, but when it comes down to you and another institution that looks a lot like you with the same number of wins, you just don't win the tiebreaker. The 8-8 in the ACC is obviously a tremendous achievement. We looked real hard at those eight wins and those eight losses and compared with everything that was going on with the rest of the portfolio. Ultimately, they didn't rise to the level of the 34 that got in.

BOB BOWLSBY: Yes, that was their non-conference. By our RPI, they were a little over a hundred.

BOB BOWLSBY: Well, one of the things we do is we look at the regular season as an extremely important part of our assessment. There isn't any question about that. But another element of it is the post-season tournament. And because of the difficulty of winning the ACC or the Big East or the Big-12 tournament, we have to value that because it's a tournament environment, and those games -- one game in that tournament isn't any more important than one game during the regular season. But when you get into these critical match-ups, it's a good opportunity to see who can play when the pressure is really on and when the winner moves on and the loser goes home. Those are assessments that are important to us. So we watch a lot of games during the course of the weekend, and we -- it's just one of the things we do. They play 30 games, 32 games, whatever the case may be. I wouldn't suggest that one's a lot more important than any other. You know, sometimes you get to the point where there's no distinguishable difference between two candidates, and maybe the conference tournament outcomes are the only thing you've got to break the tie.

BOB BOWLSBY: I don't know that I could accurately assess that for you. Obviously with the prominence of the Arizona program, they're always intimately involved in our discussions. But I couldn't characterize for you what might have happened on a hypothetical basis.

BOB BOWLSBY: I'm not aware that we had any discussion on it.