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NATIONAL COLLEGIATE ATHLETIC ASSOCIATION MEDIA CONFERENCE

March 16, 2009

Jacki Silar

RICK NIXON: I'm Rick Nixon with the NCAA. And thank you for joining us for this evening's post-bracket teleconference with NCAA's Division I Women's Basketball Committee Chair Jacki Silar. Jacki is Associate Director for Athletics for Sports Program and Senior Woman Administrator at Duke University.
After meeting in Indianapolis for the past four days, the Committee announced earlier this evening the 64-team field for the 2009 NCAA Division I Women's Basketball Championship.
31 conference teams earned automatic qualification into the championship, while 33 additional teams were selected at-large.
First and second round games will be played on Saturday, Monday, March 21st and 23rd, and on Sunday-Tuesday, March 22nd and 24. Championship play will culminate at the Women's Final Four to be played in St. Louis on April 5th and 7th.
At this time I'd like to ask Jacki Silar for her opening statement.
JACKI SILAR: Good evening to everybody. I'm glad to be with you this evening, and it would be fair to say that we had an intense four days here in Indianapolis. The Division I Women's Basketball Committee knows that the selection seeding and bracketing process for the tournament is the single-most important responsibility that we have.
We had a big job to do, and I believe that the committee put together an excellent bracket for our championship. We worked long and hard and considered every possible factor for every team. Engaged in extensive discussion. We didn't always agree on every factor. And I feel in the end that we put together a tournament field that we believe will be a great championship experience for our coaches, our student-athletes, fans, ESPN and the NCAA.
We dealt with a great number of teams who had very similar resumes, which complicated to some degree the bracketing piece of our job and the placing of teams into the brackets that we now feature the 16 first and second round sites.
And I personally would like to thank our committee members for the many hours that they put in this season and also this weekend.
Combined, the committee watched almost 1,700 games, in preparation for the selection. And as a committee we brought into the process our knowledge gained through watching games and seeking input from various groups, including the coaches rankings and extensive team data.
This group worked extraordinarily well together to ensure that we made a good decision in regard to the championship. And there was a great deal of basketball and committee experience around the table in the selection room, and that served the committee well as we engaged in dialogue. And we made really tough decisions.
We believe that we put together a bracket that will result in an excellent championship and a very exciting one that will begin this weekend and continue until the national championship game on April 7th in St. Louis.
THE MODERATOR: Questions for Jacki.

Q. Jacki, I just want to ask you about the decisions for the last couple at-large spots for you guys. In specific, what had USF, teams like Georgia and Minnesota, and BCU made the cut?
JACKI SILAR: As you know, it's the entire body of work that we look at. And we look at all the at-large teams that are under consideration. We look at a lot of data. We look at factors of head-to-head, win/loss records, strength of schedule, how they played over the last 12 games.
It's an incredible amount of information. So as we review that information, each committee member will look at that resume in a different light than another committee member. As we get down to all the teams that are under consideration, we consider each of these factors and look at their complete body of work.

Q. Was there one factor in particular that USF was lacking that kept them from getting in?
JACKI SILAR: Well, one of the factors that we look at is the strength of schedule. And I can tell you that South Florida's non-conference strength of schedule was 264th, and that was a factor that the committee members would take into consideration.

Q. First off, you guys I would thing would be pretty pumped that you have 12 of the 16 sites have host teams in it. And is that a good thing with the economy? And along those lines, it looks like four 1s and 2s actually may have to play a team on their home court, with Duke playing Michigan State, potentially, Stanford playing San Diego State, Auburn playing at Rutgers, and Oklahoma playing at Iowa. Any fear for protecting the 1s and 2s?
JACKI SILAR: I'll answer your first question first. Regarding the economy, of course we keep that in mind. In fact, one of our principles requires us to keep our teams as close to home as possible. This year was no different than years in the past.
And as you know, the committee spends a great deal of time putting the bracket together and using our principles regarding aligning teams as close to their campuses as possible.
And we know that teams are going to have to travel. That's going to happen in any championship. Regarding the higher seeded teams playing on the lower, the home court of the lower seed, when we were placing the teams into the bracket, we put them in closest geographical locations in their region then we drop in the first and second round sites.
And when you do that, because of teams you just mentioned, Michigan State, I think you mentioned Iowa, they just naturally fall into that placing. And that's where they would go according to our principles regarding bracketing.

Q. Just to follow up with that, I know I've sat in the room with you guys about this. Did you sit for a second after you did the bracketing, you're like, ah, that's interesting that these teams have to go play on these other teams' home courts?
JACKI SILAR: Yeah, we spent a lot of time looking at our bracket and adjusting our bracket and keeping in mind all our principles and procedures and additional considerations that we use.
And this is, I think, just how it happened within your bracket. Once you drop those first and second round sites in, you can't make a lot of adjustments because you have to keep in mind all the principles that you have.

Q. The one thing that stuck out to me, Drexel is a 12 seed and VCU is a 10. Drexel won the regular season, and VCU came in second. Any reason behind that one, why Drexel is lower seeded?
JACKI SILAR: You have to remember that we're not just comparing those two teams. We're comparing all the at-large teams and we're not just -- we're not just comparing two teams.

Q. Given the fact that UCON and Tennessee don't play anymore during the regular season, probably won't in the foreseeable future, was there any consideration given to putting Tennessee in the Trenton region perhaps as a 4 or a 5 to bring up a possible Sweet 16 matchup with UCON?
JACKI SILAR: Richard, that's not one of our criteria or principal factors that we consider whatsoever.

Q. Obviously a lot of excitement about SDSU. South Dakota State being in the top 20 in the polls, 4 and 1 versus the tournament field. And they got a No. 7 seed. Curious what the committee's reasoning was on putting SDSU as a No. 7 seed, first off?
JACKI SILAR: Once again, what we do is we look at all of the teams that are under consideration for the brackets, the first seeding. And as we look at them, there are discussions regarding all the factors that we look at: Overall record, the conference, the non-conference record, RPI. Strength of schedule. All those factors are considered. And this year that's where the Jackrabbits are going to be seeded.

Q. With SDSU, I noticed it with DePaul as well, there's four teams in those pods. And those two are the only not from that state, three from Texas and three from California, is that just the way it works out? Or is there any focus to trying to get four from one state in that pod?
JACKI SILAR: Obviously we keep everything in mind regarding the economy and travel for teams. We tried to keep teams as close to their campuses as possible, because that is one of our principles and procedures.

Q. Can you just talk about the placing of Louisville as a No. 3 in Baton Rouge? They were No. 4 in the RPI, with strength of schedule 10; but yet not getting too close to home and the 3 seed, if you can kind of take me through maybe the process, the thinking process there?
JACKI SILAR: Sure, Louisville finished 2nd in the Big East regular season and they won 21 games against top 100 teams, and they have 12 wins against teams in the tournament.
As we go through the discussions regarding all the factors of the teams that are placed into the seed lines, probably one thing that jumped out at our committee members was their loss to Nevada was 139 RPI loss. And that I'm sure might have influenced some of our committee members.
As you know, it is each committee member looking at the data and making a decision.

Q. First, I have two questions for you. First of all, can you talk a little bit about Michigan State? I know you alluded to it before. But can you talk about them hosting the regional and kind of how that played into them and the seed that they got?
JACKI SILAR: I'm sorry, Michigan State?

Q. Yes, Michigan State.
JACKI SILAR: They're hosting first and second round. I thought you said regional. I wasn't sure.

Q. First and second.
JACKI SILAR: Michigan State bid for a first and second round and was awarded that several years ago. And so when they were placed into the bracket, then their first and second round sites were placed in according to the individual teams that would be playing them, according to our seed line.

Q. Can you talk a little bit about why the 9 seed with them? What got them the 9 seed instead of an 8 or a 7 or a lower seed?
JACKI SILAR: Well, you have to look at the entire body of work. You have to look at their resume. And Michigan State was 20 and 10. They were 8 and 4 over their last 12 games. And their RPI was 50. So they were some of the factors that our committee looks at. And they are comparing this against many teams that are selected into our tournament.

Q. And just on a personal note, Duke obviously coming here as the 1 seed, there's a little bit of subplot there with Coach McCauley having come from Michigan State. Was that talked about at all or discussed, and have you talked with Coach McCauley about that at all?
JACKI SILAR: I've been a little busy since the bracket came out. I haven't had a chance to talk to Coach McCauley. I think it's a great story line. And to answer your question, no, it wasn't talked about in the selection room.

Q. My question was about some of the placement of the teams in the bracket. And I know we talked about it last year in terms of, as you guys kind of move down your S curve, you take each team and place them in the region closest to them. And we talked about that a lot in Indianapolis a month and a half or so ago. But I know that there was a little controversy about it last year, because of that UCON and Rutgers ended up as a 1 and 2 in the same region. It appears in this bracket that you didn't do the geographical sequence thing, or really Auburn would have ended up in Raleigh and one of the Big 12 2s, Baylor or Texas A&M, would have ended up in Oklahoma City. I'm wondering, just because of last year's discussion about UCON and Rutgers being in the same region, if you guys went away from that, because, as I said, really Texas A&M or Baylor would have ended up in Oklahoma City with Oklahoma had it gone like that.
JACKI SILAR: Well, Charlie, this year the committee followed our principles and procedures just like we do every year. And we have an additional consideration that allows us to not, to try to avoid conference semifinal matchup.
And that is something that this committee remaining constant with our principles and procedures, mind you, we tried to avoid the same conferences meeting in finals of regionals.

Q. If you could explain the inclusion of a couple of at-large teams that were on the bubble, in particular Georgia, obviously, and Virginia Commonwealth. And Mike Slive said this yesterday when he was asked about the lack of mid-majors at-large teams relative to previous years, there are actually five women's mid-majors at large this year which is more than men. I know that you don't consider conferences, but could you speak to that issue as well as those two particular schools, what got them in over some other teams that were also on the bubble like they were?
JACKI SILAR: Well, you have to consider that you're right, we do not consider conference affiliations whatsoever. That's not part of our criteria. There are 297 possible teams that would be considered for at-large selection. And when you talk about just narrowing it down to Georgia and VCU, there were many other teams that were considered.
And you look at their complete body of work and you look at the many factors, and then at some point you go away from all the data and you think about the 1,700 games that the entire committee has watched over the season. And you start talking about those teams. And that's very, very important.
So at the end, it's not what somebody did negative, but what did they do to distinguish themselves from another team. And that's when -- and you've got to remember it's 10 people in a room and everybody looking at everything, all the data and all the factors differently.

Q. What did they have going for them? What ultimately helped the committee make the decision to put them in?
JACKI SILAR: Well, Georgia, I'll talk about Georgia since that was one that you mentioned. They had nine wins against top 100 teams, including four teams in the tournament.
They had quality wins over Auburn, Florida, Zande and Mississippi State.
And they had wins against SEC regular season champions and conference tournament champions in Auburn and Zande. They had an early season loss to Detroit. And the committee talked about that as well. For example, let's talk about Virginia Commonwealth. They finished second in the Colonial regular season. They lost to James Madison in the semifinals of their tournament.
And they finished their season 10 and 2 in their last 12 games, which is one of our factors. And they had five wins against 100 teams, including non-conference win against Liberty.

Q. I'm wondering, with what you just said about you want to avoid the conference matchups in the regional finals, in that case did Texas A&M possibly get stuck with Connecticut in that region because you were following that principle, or were they actually technically the No. 4/No. 2 seed?
JACKI SILAR: Let me just correct you. It's not a principle. It's an additional consideration.

Q. Poor choice of words there.
JACKI SILAR: That's okay. That's pretty important. No, they did not get placed in that region because of that.

Q. Because you know, I guess, that teams would love to avoid having to run into Connecticut to get to the Final Four. Was there discussion at all when you got to placing teams in that region, or was that not a consideration? Just to make sure that you didn't have a team in that region that maybe shouldn't have been there or didn't deserve to be there, if that makes sense?
JACKI SILAR: Right. The 2 seeds, they're placed into the bracket like all the other seeds by seed order and assigned to the site that's closest to their campus while we're still following all the bracket principles.

Q. Among the four No. 1s, could you just clarify the hierarchy, obviously UCON is 1 and Duke is 4. Who was 2? Was it Maryland or Oklahoma?
JACKI SILAR: It was Maryland. And then Oklahoma was the third.
THE MODERATOR: Thank you, Jacki.

End of FastScripts

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