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NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION MEDIA CONFERENCEMarch 7, 2007Gary WaltersDAVE WORLOCK: Thank you for joining us this morning. We're speaking today from the same hotel suite in downtown Indianapolis where the Division I Men's Basketball Committee will begin the selection seeding and bracketing process in a matter of just a couple of hours. We welcome all of you to the second media teleconference with Gary Walters, director of athletics at Princeton University and chair of the committee. Gary, as we begin today, we have a dozen teams that have secured spots already in this year's field by winning the automatic qualifying bid from their conference. Over the course of the next five days, 19 other conference tournaments will be decided. With so much parity in so many of the leagues, can you please comment on how closely the committee will look at the results of the conference tournaments and how that will affect the selection and seeding process? GARY WALTERS: Thank you, David. I just want to say that today I'll have a much briefer preamble than the last discussion we had a couple weeks ago. As David suggests, there continues to be tremendous parity in college basketball. That's a wonderful thing for the game in general. This last week will, indeed, be entertaining as the conference tournaments play out. I think every fan across the country is interested in what is happening, and certainly I can assure you that those of us, the 10 members of us on the committee, are also keenly interested in what is going to develop. I continue to believe that there are certain themes that are at work. This may be a little redundant based on the last call, but I still think they're appropriate. The compression or the congestion that is evident nationally and within the conferences certainly is going to make our selection and seeding difficult this year. Consequently, I really believe, as I stated the last time we were on the call, that the importance of the conference tournaments, whether or not teams can either embellish or damage their resumes in these tournaments, is going to be an important factor. I would also say, thirdly, there appears to be less clarity this year at the top of the field. Consequently, there's the possibility for seeding change of the top teams, should they stub their toes in the tournament. Indeed, the reality is that I believe there's fluidity up and down, all the teams that we're considering. Then, finally, this is one of the major points that I made the last time, and that is we have to continue to look at the performance of the teams within the unbalanced schedules of their respective leagues. But, frankly, we also have to look at the unbalanced schedules outside the league. Some teams have been able to fatten up in the pre-season or on home games while other teams have had a more arduous path as it relates to their non-conference schedules. Those will be issues that we'll have to probe into very, very carefully. With that as an opening comment, I'll open the floor to questions. Q. How much more difficult is it seeding the top two lines when teams have lost in the last couple weeks? GARY WALTERS: It's the point I made earlier about fluidity. I continue to think there is a certain amount of fluidity in those lines. There's less clarity. I think in the past, certain teams you could pretty much scratch in at this point, but there may have been just seeding issues as it relates to the first line. I think this year there's actually more doubt about where we probably are between the first and second lines. Q. How much does a very impressive neutral-site victory back in November weigh in for a bubble team, given all the time that has passed since that standout win? GARY WALTERS: Well, I think, once again, one has to be careful about being categorical about one variable. I know this is a cliché, and I'm loath to use it, but in this case we really do look at the full body of work, and we try to take individual variables into context. A neutral-site win at the beginning of the year, you know, could have some relative importance. But to overstate the importance of that vis-a-vis all of the other factors that we look at I think would be a mistake. I wouldn't get too carried away with something like that. On the other hand, it's something that we'll certainly take into account. Q. All the other factors would be? GARY WALTERS: You know, we're talking about, for example, things that we look at on the committee, which are current rankings by the regional advisory committees of coaches, their Division I record, their overall RPI, their, non-conference record, their non-conference RPI, their road record, et cetera, et cetera. Q. Can you talk about the uniqueness or challenges of you being an athletic director at an institution with no athletic scholarships and now being the point man for a multi-million dollar tournament featuring teams of all these scholarship athletes? GARY WALTERS: Keep in mind that the NCAA Division I basketball is comprised of institutions from across the country that represent Division I, Division I-A, I-AA, and I-AAA. Indeed, we have that diversity of representation on the committee. As you know, we have six members from Division I-A, we have four members from Divisions I-AA and I-AAA. I don't think because I happen to have been -- happen to be a representative of a I-AA school necessarily means that I look at this tournament any differently than anybody else. In fact, indeed, it's the fact that all these different conferences throughout the country can play each other on a level playing field and we can see who emerges. So I think that part of it is really exciting. Having said that, I also have coaching experience, having coached at Providence College a couple years when the Big East was formed and have served in many different capacities as it relates to basketball, whether it be a color TV analyst or working with the Dave Gavin in 1980 on the Olympic selection committee. I think there are a number of us on the committee that have any number of different experiences in basketball that we bring to the table. I don't think I'm hampered in any way by being at an unscholarshiped institution. Q. How has the pod system worked since it's been implemented? How well do you think it's worked over the years? GARY WALTERS: Well, we think that it's worked pretty well. I think the main focus on the pod system was to try to cut down on the traveling while at the very same time, you know, maximizing the overall levels of competitiveness within the tournament. We've actually reduced travel by about 40%. Not only that, but what it does is it allows parents and patrons to follow their teams. We think it's been quite effective in achieving our objectives. The feedback we've gotten from everybody has been very good. Q. (Indiscernible)? GARY WALTERS: You broke up, but what I think the question was about how does an injury affect a team perhaps in the last 10 games or so? Q. If you understand that the player is scheduled to come back in the NCAA tournament but hasn't played in the games leading up to it. GARY WALTERS: Well, again, this is one of the real subjective areas we have to deal with. That is, whether or not a player is scheduled to come back is something that one can only hypothesize. We really have to go by looking at the team that's on the court today and evaluate their performance within the context of the entire season. Furthermore, some teams have performed very well when a player has gone out. Some teams have struggled when a player has gone out. Also understand that when it comes to injuries, we do have access to the commissioners of the leagues so that we can get direct information as it relates to the relative status of a player. That also is factored into any decision we might make. But it's, without question, one of the most difficult areas for the committee, because in many ways we're really dealing with a hypothetical, and that's always tough. Q. This year it looks like there's a smattering of big conference teams that don't really have good road wins to show anywhere, but they might have some neutral-court wins. Does the committee look at neutral-courts as half road games type of situation? GARY WALTERS: Yes, the committee absolutely does look at that. We dissect both road games as well as neutral-site games so we have a feeling for not only how many games were played there but maybe what the overall percentage of games that were played on the road versus home games. Again, it's an issue if you're looking at two teams that might be on the bubble, one played a little bit more rigorous road schedule than the other, was perhaps a little more successful, that might be a variable that tilts the opinion of a number of members of the committee. It's clearly an issue that we focus in on as well as, again, focusing in on all those other variables that the referenced earlier. Q. A lot of focus so far on the top and middle of the bracket. I wanted to ask about the bottom, specifically what is the process for determining who goes to the opening-round game in Dayton? GARY WALTERS: We have a subcommittee that's assigned to looking at the last quadrant. We pay just as much attention to the last quadrant as we do to the first quadrant. As with any number of things, one of the things that we'll evaluate or what are the overall records against common opponents, how do they do head-to-head. Once again, looking at any other number of factors. How did they do on the road. There's a very, very careful sort of these teams. Ultimately they get every bit as much attention and respect as the teams that are in the top two or three or four lines. Q. How confident can a team be if it has a winning record in one of the highest rated conferences, say the ACC or the PAC-10? Is that team very solidly in the field? GARY WALTERS: There's no magic formula as it relates to any of this. Just because a team has a winning record in a solid league or even a .500 record in a solid league does not automatically mean they're in a tournament. One of the points I made earlier in the year, again, is this issue of the unbalanced schedule where teams can have perhaps the same records, they might even be 8-8 or 9-7, but they achieved those records by following different paths. One may have had to play some of the tougher teams in the league while the other may have been able to play some of the weaker teams in the league in order to achieve that record. The one concession I'll make to you, since you're on the West Coast, you may be alluding to at this point even, say, the PAC-10, is that in the PAC-10 at least we have a league that's playing round robin. That's very, very important. Finally, understanding that, you know, all 326 teams in the NCAA are independents when it comes to selection and seeding. Once the conference games and tournaments are over, we all view them basically as being independent. We compare all teams against all others. I don't think there's any simple magic formula for determining that. Q. If a team loses a player to injury and struggles, then that player comes back just before its conference tournament, what does the player and team have to show with that full team back? Can you disregard a stretch of games when they were without a key player to injury? GARY WALTERS: Again, we're dealing in the hypothetical. You'd have to know all of the other data that we're looking at as it relates to that team that I already referred to. What was its road record before those injuries? What was its home record before those injuries? How did it do in conference? How did it do out of conference? An injury is something that we have to consider within the overall context and performance of that team, but it's not the single issue that will determine whether or not a team gets in or not. So, you know, we do our due diligence on this stuff. Understand it's very much a human process. We have 10 different sets of eyes looking at these issues trying to make a determination. At the end of the day, it's the overall consensus of the committee that will determine the outcome. Q. One of the experiences of the mock committee was to sort of see the topic of how many teams get in from any given conference never came up in those deliberations. Presumably that has really reflected how it goes for you guys. Can you discuss that, to what degree that would ever come up. GARY WALTERS: Well, I think you hit the nail on the head. It doesn't. As I mentioned a number of times, once conference play is over, we consider everybody independent. So when we compare and contrast teams, we're not comparing and contrasting teams on the basis of conference affiliation, we're comparing and contrasts teams on the basis of their body of work. That's the critical issue. Obviously we will, at times, have to take into account what we think might be the overall strength of schedule that might be represented in one conference against another conference, but that's the extent of it. We never discuss the number of teams that might be represented in the tournament itself, or even consider it. Q. Is it fair to say that people that quote statistics about RPI of conferences, for instance there's one out there that says conferences with the top -- RPI in the top six I think almost have never had fewer than three teams. That's just purely coincidental? GARY WALTERS: That would be my guess. You know, I would be reluctant to comment too much on that. I mean, one of the things that you've heard me state last month when we talked, given my own background in the investment business as well as having been in athletics, is that past performance is never a guarantee of future results. Q. With all the teams that are in contention for spots right now, that probably means more people griping about it possibly afterwards. Are you ready for criticism you may get as chairman afterwards? GARY WALTERS: You know, I made a comment the other day that there was a point guard that played for the London Monarchs in 1500 by the name of Bill Shake-and-Bake-Speare. He once said, An easy life ahead that wears the crown. So as the chair, having observed some of the criticism that the committee has received over the years from teams that were on the bubble that didn't get in, we both understand their disappointment. Having played in the tournament twice myself, I know what a wonderful experience it was. When we get down to making these tough decisions, we're very sensitive about the fact that there are going to be some teams that are disappointed. I think it goes without saying that we have to understand that disappointment and be sensitive to it. But at the same time our skins have to be thick enough to handle it. Q. I don't know if you can quantify it, but if you can, how much weight do you place on a team's record versus teams ranked 1 through 50, then 51 through 100? You could have a team with a lot of momentum, but they didn't play many teams 1 through 50. GARY WALTERS: You know, I don't think there's any absolute measure that the committee uses in selecting the teams. Each committee member looks at these issues, again, from their own perspective. I think one of the things that's axiomatic about what we do is oftentimes where you stand on an issue is determined by where you sit, what part of the country you're from, what division you're from, what variables you think are important. Having said that, I want to underscore the fact that, you know, every member of this committee takes his conference affiliation or institutional affiliation, takes that hat off when he comes in the door. So I think the integrity of our process is paramount. Clearly there are challenges for some institutions as it relates to getting into the tournament if they perhaps played a weaker record, or played a weaker schedule, I mean. If they're showing momentum at the end, hopefully that momentum will carry over and maybe even help them win a conference tournament. Our job ultimately is to find the 34 best at-large teams. Q. I realize now how much less you all use RPI than we all imagined. Is there any scenario you can imagine where a team that was No. 1 overall in the RPI might not be one of the four No. 1 seeds? GARY WALTERS: Well, I think to a certain extent you answered your own question. The RPI is a tool. As I like to say, it's basically a general indicator of relative strength, not a precise indicator of absolute strength. One can probably put together any number of quantitative models and come up with different teams that might be No. 1 based on that quantitative model. We really have to, at the end, compare and contrast teams throughout the country based on all the variables we talked about. So the answer to your question is: Sure, we could have a team that's No. 1 in the RPI and not necessarily seeded either No. 1 or even in the first line. Q. That first ballot for you is due when? GARY WALTERS: The first ballot is due this evening at 11 p.m. Q. Terry Holland, who was one of the instigators if that's the right word, of the pod system. He said if you could make any changes to it, he thought that maybe the No. 1 seeds don't necessarily need protecting, and that the 16 seeds would do well to be sent to their nearest region, their fan base. Would you agree with that? Is that something that's ever come up? GARY WALTERS: The No. 1 bracketing principle is we're going to protect the first five lines as it relates to ensuring that they don't play at a home-court disadvantage. It's really the principles and procedures that we review every summer. We meet with committee alumni at the Final Four to discuss a lot of these issues. The feedback that we've gotten really over the last four or five years that we've had the pod system has been very, very positive. But that doesn't mean that we won't continue to review it, to strive for continuous improvement. But ultimately the seeding process is in place to provide and show respect for those teams that are seeded highest. Q. Do you believe you've come to an understanding of the system and the confusion of the earlier years has passed? GARY WALTERS: You know, I'm not quite sure whether people totally understand it. Understand that the bracketing process itself, we don't get to it till 4:00 in the afternoon on Sunday. We have a tremendous amount of computer help and computer backup in order to ensure that we can achieve our No. 1 objective, which is to balance -- provide a nationally balanced bracket, where all four regions are equivalent and where we can in essence play for four national championships. That's really what we're striving to do. Q. To what degree, if ever, do you even talk about rankings as in AP or the coaches poll? I know there's no guarantee that past results will indicate the future. Any idea what to roughly expect after the first ballot tonight? Is it in that 20 to 25 range or 20 to 22 range roughly? GARY WALTERS: As relates to your second question, I have no clue as it relates to where we'll come out on that. It could be anywhere between 18 and 25, 26, I suppose. I am not Kreskin, but we'll see what happens. As it relates to the rankings and the polls, I think the more one can take into account independent assessments, the better the overall decision making that we have. We certainly will look at the AP poll and the coaches' poll and consider those in conjunction with all the other data we have, but it's not necessarily, you know, driving the car. DAVE WORLOCK: Thank you, everyone, for participating on this morning's call. We'd like to remind you of the next two calls that Mr. Walters will partake with the media. The next one is 7 p.m. eastern on Selection Sunday night. The one after that is 3 p.m. eastern on Monday afternoon, March 12th. The number to participate on those calls is 913-981-5507. Thank you, Mr. Walters, and thank you, everyone, for participating. We'll talk to you down the road. End of FastScripts |
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