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NCAA 2017 BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 8, 2017

Mark Hollis

Indianapolis, Indiana

DAVE WORLOCK: Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for today's Division I men's basketball call with committee chair Mark Hollis. We want to extend our appreciation especially to everyone on the West Coast who is up early this morning to join us.

Transcripts will be posted at www.ncaa.com/transcripts. That same site will house all of the game-day and off-day press conference transcripts at each of the 14 sites from the First Four through the Final Four.

The selection show will air Sunday at 5:30 to 7:00 p.m. eastern time on CBS.

The tournament begins with the First Four on Tuesday night in Dayton, all four games, two on Tuesday, two more on Wednesday, will be aired on truTV.

Then TBS, CBS, TNT and truTV will carry first- and second-round games throughout the day and night Thursday through Sunday, March 16th to 19th. TBS and CBS will provide regional coverage Thursday through Sunday, March 23rd to 26th. CBS will carry the three Final Four games, April 1st and 3rd, when we will crown our 79th national champion.

In addition, the selection show and all 67 games of the tournament can be heard on Westwood One Radio. You can watch all the games on your laptop, tablet, and other mobile devices, via the March Madness Live app.

At this time I'd like to turn the call over to Mark Hollis, the director of athletics at Michigan State University, and the chair of the 2017 Division I Men's Basketball Committee.

MARK HOLLIS: Good morning, everyone. Thank you for your time today. This is the second year in a row that the selection meeting is taking place at the Marriott Marquis in New York City. It is here in Times Square, where I'm sitting now.

Soon my colleagues on the Committee will start our meeting by submitting an initial ballot which will result in several teams being voted immediately into the field, and several others will be under consideration for the tournament inclusion over the course of the next few days.

As you know, last month the Committee took the unprecedented step of revealing to the public our top 16 teams in a show that aired on CBS on February 11th. This was a great exercise for the Committee, and it generated considerable positive attention over the last few weeks.

Even if some people didn't agree with the teams or the seeds, we believe an overwhelming percentage of people found it to be educational. It certainly generated excitement, and that is a positive thing.

However, it's important to stress that today, March 8th, is day one of Selection Week. We are starting anew, meaning today is a restart of our season-long evaluation of teams. It's not a refresh of the work we did nearly four weeks ago.

Too much has happened since February 11th. In fact, since the bracket preview show aired, roughly 1300 games have been played. Some of those games were played in conference tournaments in recent days, and the Committee congratulates East Tennessee State, Florida Gulf Coast, Gonzaga, Iona, Jacksonville State, Mount St. Mary's, North Carolina Wilmington, Northern Kentucky, South Dakota State, Wichita State, and Winthrop, on being the first 11 teams to punch their ticket to the NCAA tournament.

Interestingly enough, seven of those teams were regular-season champions or co-champions. Two other leagues that are in the championship stage of their tournament also feature the No. 1 seeds, Bucknell in tonight's Patriot League title game, and Vermont in Saturday's America East championship game.

This is drastically different patterns than last year when only 11 of the 31 No. 1 seeds won their conference tournaments. It demonstrates just how different each year is. It also is a reminder that regular-season conference champions are automatically added to the 'under consideration' board, which will be populated later this afternoon when we cast our initial ballots.

With that said, we want to wish good luck to the remaining teams playing in their league tournaments over the next five days, and we're now prepared to answer questions that you may have.

Q. Just wanted to check in, give us an update of how you think things are going with the Final Four so close now.
MARK HOLLIS: Being a national tournament, it's very exciting to have the Final Four in the West. Gives us an opportunity. The individuals there, Dawn Rogers, is leading the charge there in Phoenix, has done a fabulous job in coordinating all of the different sites, not just where the games will be played at the stadium, but also all the other ancillary activities that really surround the Final Four, from the music festivals, to the FanFest, to the activities that fans attending a Final Four will experience.

It's the best of Phoenix and the best of the Final Four coming together. I can't say enough about the individuals in Phoenix that have put the work in to really put forward what I think is going to be one of the great Final Fours.

Q. Mark, I know you canceled your trip to bounce around to a bunch of different games. Have you been able to go to other games? How much has some of the stuff back in East Lansing precluded you from the Selection Committee or have you been able to keep up with it?
MARK HOLLIS: No, I'm keeping up with all the activities of the Committee, observing games, watching games, as well as input here. We've been all in. I came into New York on Saturday. I have been part of the CBS process here, as well as the Committee launching last night, the meetings today. Full steam ahead.

Q. How has this tournament Committee been different than the other four you've been on?
MARK HOLLIS: Not greatly different. We have 10 members that come from a variety of different backgrounds. Each one of us bring a different perspective.

Being in the chair role, I think you have a responsibility to lead the group. That's what we're striving to do. But we have such great individuals that have great basketball backgrounds, either as coaches, as former student-athletes, around programs that have great traditions. Really, it's a great group of leaders that we have among the 10 different members on the Committee.

Q. I cover a team that's been fairly inconsistent this year. They've been good at times, then at times not as good. I'm wondering how the Committee tries to judge. Do you judge the good side? How do you weigh all of that in trying to make a determination?
MARK HOLLIS: Well, that's going to start this afternoon with all teams. Our charge is to select the best 36 teams, based upon results. That's exactly what we do. We look at the results of all games. It's not necessarily the most deserving teams. It's the best teams based upon results.

That's what we have to dive into. We'll do that with all teams. But while you're focused on one team, we started with over 300, we're now trimming that down to a manageable number. That process will start at 1:00 today when we do the first initial ballot.

Beyond the one team you're discussing, teams have ebbs and flows throughout the year. We go through and we observe all of those.

Q. You mentioned the announcement on February 11th of the top 16. If I heard you right, you said the Committee starts anew. It's not a refresh kind of thing off of that. What impact, if any, does the February 11th announcement have on the Committee's work now?
MARK HOLLIS: If you watched the CBS show, you saw me crumple up the sheet of paper at the end of the show. That was the end of that process from the Committee's perspective.

What did it do? I think, one, it put intensity into the Committee February 11th that we haven't had in the past. I think you could look at that from both a positive and a negative perspective.

From a positive, all 10 members were really focused in, in delivering something we knew was going to be public. It wasn't a practice round, per se, like it had been in the past.

We still kind of term it as the PSAT, where what we're starting today at 1:00 is the SAT, this is the real test.

In light of the intensity on the 1 to 16, perhaps we didn't get through the full body of what we would normally do in a practice session, or what many of the media have had the opportunity to come in and do, be part of the mock selection process.

Our focus, while still getting the practice, was to get that 16 described as good as we possibly could at that point in time. I think there was some pros and cons that came out of it. We've heard them all. That will go into the queue for next year.

Q. Mark, how do you weigh a road win versus a home win, how that process goes, particularly how it relates to the RPI? We cover Syracuse. That's a team right now that doesn't have a good home record, but has three solid home wins in Duke, Virginia and Florida State.
MARK HOLLIS: Again, let me talk in general terms, which your question was framed that way. That's great.

When we're going through the process, not only for selections but also for seeding, we're talking about teams that are very close in rÃ©sumÃ©s. The differentiation that occurs can come from a variety of areas, and it really changes from year to year based upon the scenarios that are out there.

Road games, road wins, really provide an opportunity to separate when you're in some of those conversations. Along with that, you have opportunities to look at head-to-head competition. You have opportunities to look at common opponents. Those are all points that come in.

I would say this, and I think your question provides an opportunity for me to describe this, as well. Conference tournament games, while they count the same as any other game, it provides opportunities for teams to play quality opponents on a neutral site, and enhance their rÃ©sumÃ©s possibly.

Your question kind of gives the opportunity for us to talk about that conference tournament component. It's no different than a neutral-site game played in December or January. But it is potentially a combination of games for individuals, neutral sites, to get that opportunity.

So road wins are an important component, things that we look at very heavily, but it's one of the components.

Q. Mark, what would you say is kind of the Selection Committee's job in picking the best at-large teams?
MARK HOLLIS: I think you just answered the question. Our job is to pick the 36 best teams based upon results. As you go through that process, you're looking at rÃ©sumÃ©s that in some cases are different. You're looking at the number of opportunities individual teams have against a variety of opponents.

We've done a lot of work this year with the NABC forming an ad hoc group. I want to be clear that those recommendations are things that are still ongoing. But we still use the RPI as our sorting mechanism. That's the mechanism that goes on the team sheets that lays out top-50 wins, top-100 wins. It goes into that whole component.

I want to emphasize the RPI is a sorting mechanism. We then dive into those team sheets and look at virtually every variable that's out there that gives us an opportunity to really differentiate one team versus another.

The scrubbing process, for those that have gone through the mock opportunity, is right in line with what's done there. I sort of equate it, after five years, that the selection and seeding process is very much like a stroke play golf tournament. Once you get to the scrubbing process, it's very much like a match play, where you're comparing one team against another with all the different variables to determine which team is better.

So two very different processes. But selecting teams, seeding teams, then scrubbing are the three components that we go in and play with the different variables.

Q. Mark, you said the magic word, which is 'results', not necessarily based on predictions. This has become a little bit not so much statistical as philosophical. You are based on results. Has there been any discussion in the Committee about what the potential repercussions of that could be, whether you're at risk of leaving out teams that might do better in the tournament because you're dedicated to putting in the teams that deserve to be there based on results?
MARK HOLLIS: Yeah, I think one thing, to be very clear is, the principles and procedures of selection, seeding and bracketing, items that we review every summer, are available online publicly. That's what we follow.

While following that, each Committee member has the opportunity, and has resources available to them, to pull in. I think from my perspective, speaking for me as one of the 10, I do look at other analytics, and I look at variations in those to try to tell the story that allow me then to go back into the team sheets and make some of those decisions.

So it's not to say that other analytic tools aren't available to the Committee because, indeed, they are. What I am saying is that when we do look at the team sheets, when we are looking at results, when we make statements on Sunday, it's going to be relative to the principles and procedures, the RPI, that's used on the team sheets. That is the sorting mechanism that we are currently using.

I think hearing the feedback from the analytical summit that took place, there is still much conversation and much debate on how those should be used in a framework going forward in the future to improve. But I think your improvement that you're looking for is miniscule. All the metrics do a reasonably or very good job of providing a framework in which to look at teams.

But at the end of the day, and the reason that we're here for so many days, is to really dive in and look at virtually every game played by every team that's under consideration, how that impacts the selection process.

Q. Mark, coach's absences. I know there's not a blanket rule on does it help if a coach is absent for certain games during the year, if they do come back relatively early, you're able to see how that team looks with the coach back, kind of with the full complement of players? Does it help if that happens earlier?
MARK HOLLIS: You're cutting in and out on me. Could you shorten the question.

Q. When a coach is absent, is it a little bit more helpful for you when it happens earlier in the year where there's a lot more data points and games after the coach returns?
MARK HOLLIS: You're talking about coach-player availability?

Q. Yes.
MARK HOLLIS: I think that's one of the more challenging things that we look at. The one thing I would say right on the front end is coach and player availability does not change wins to losses or losses to wins.

I do know that we have an extreme database here on both scenarios, both with coaches and student-athletes. Our objective is to determine the teams that are coming in the tournament.

To answer your question directly, I don't think there's any question that issues that occur earlier in the season are probably more quantifiable for the Committee to look at if there's subsequent games.

But we take all of them into consideration. We have to be fair, not only to the teams that are missing individuals, but also who they're competing against. So those are choices that each Committee member has to take into consideration when they're making the voting process.

There's not a blanket perspective from a Committee standpoint that things move up or down because of absences. We have to do our best assessment based upon the information we have available.

Q. You opened the call with the conference tournaments, there not being as many 1 seeds knocked out as last year. As someone who has kept tabs on a lot of those teams, from an athletic director's perspective, is there sympathy for teams, for those not making the tournament after two plus months of a great season?
MARK HOLLIS: I can't hear you. Hang on.

DAVE WORLOCK: You were asking about regular-season champions, how we feel about their inclusion in the tournament, how they determine the automatic qualifier?

MARK HOLLIS: I got you.

I think it's important to note that the NCAA, nor the Committee, determines who the AQ is coming out of any conference. The conference sets that up. I guess the Ivy League would be the most recent example of making a choice in how their AQ is selected. So that's a choice of the conference.

I know there's been some conversation out in the public about that process. From our perspective, from the Committee's perspective, we accept the AQ that's submitted forward.

From an AD perspective, I was a manager for Jud Heathcote, so I value the regular season greatly. I also see the excitement of the tournaments as being a lead-in, giving virtually every team an opportunity to be part of the NCAA tournament from kind of a reset standpoint.

So those aren't really NCAA issues, per se. I think it's a national conversation among conferences. We accept the AQ that's sent forward by the leagues, based upon their protocol.

Q. Mark, you mentioned you do look at your own analytics sometimes. I heard a lot of stuff coming out of the analytical summit. Do you look at analytics and include margin of victory, because so much is available out there online now that includes that? I think some of the coaches, like Gregg Marshall, start to get confused that they are maybe rated higher in some of these ratings than they would be under the Committee's protocol.
MARK HOLLIS: If you look at analytics, really beyond the RPI or the KPI, you are looking at analytics that take margin of victory into consideration.

Again, I can speak from my perspective. I do look at them, but I look at them in a framework of cycling me back to the team sheets. Those team sheets are solely RPI based or results based, and do not take it into consideration.

I think there's valuable information that can come out of some of those different metrics. As Committee members, you want to gather as much information as you can in order to get back to the framework.

There's also the concern that you're looking at too many things. As you look at a variety of different measurements out there, I think they're almost endless in individual comparative data that's out there. You have to kind of frame it into something that you trust, you have some consistency with. There's many good ones out there. Most of them are extremely accurate in nature.

Again, what I like to do, and it's just my preference, is to put up a few of them, both results based and analytics based, and look at the variations, look at the standard deviations, and let that allow me to cycle back and look at certain team sheets in a little more depth than maybe I would.

To answer your question, I guess that would be the margin of victory. We don't use it in the room. But because those analytic tools use it, it would be naÃ¯ve of me to say I don't look at analytics that take that into consideration.

Q. Just to be clear. I haven't take the bracket seminar since '09, which is eight years.
MARK HOLLIS: Time to sign back up, I think (laughter).

Q. You still use the same process, right? Basically it's with the RPI as a baseline, then expanding from there?
MARK HOLLIS: I think at the end of the day, with all the debate that's out there, you have to have some mechanism that allows the Committee to sort. I keep using the words 'a sorting tool'. That's really what it is.

It's not a standard where you just take the numbers and throw it out and go with it, because there are too many variables that you have to look at, like road wins, like strength of schedule, like neutral-site games, who did you beat, who did you lose to. That all comes out of the sort process.

It allows the Committee to have conversations on certain points about each team, following the principles of selection and seeding, in order to get us to the point where we can differentiate between one team and another.

Q. Mark, obviously you don't use the final 12 games any more as a standard listing. You are all human as well. You're watching more games at this time of year than other times of the year. Do you find, with yourself, there being some type of recency bias, you get a feel for hot teams in your selections?
MARK HOLLIS: Not at all. I think you phrased that in a very good way because human nature would be to do that. That's one of the things from year one you have to fight against.

The games that are being played right now are extremely important. I want to reemphasize the conference tournaments. While they're equal games, they're opportunities on neutral sites to play against quality opponents. So from that standpoint, there are games we'll obviously be watching this week in that process.

As we're going through the process, several years ago the last 10 games used to be part of the team sheet. They no longer are. At least I do, I can speak for myself, you look at flows throughout the year. You look at when losses occur, where it happened, what did the scheduling sequence look like. All those things are turned over.

But within the Committee, there's no conversation about rising or falling. It's looking at the full body of work and selecting those 36 best teams.

Q. Are you looking at dates on the team sheet when things happen?
MARK HOLLIS: Yeah, dates are available on the sheets, when games are played. You can see that, absolutely.

Q. It's obviously a different year than last year. As the vice chair last year you had to recuse yourself from the room while the debate was up for the No. 1 seed. You're going to have to do that again this year with the potential for Michigan State being on the bubble. What was last year like in that situation when you have to pull yourself away? Is there any difference in feeling this year?
MARK HOLLIS: Last year was a challenge I think for the whole Committee because we had situations where Joe Castiglione, who was the chair last year, and myself, spent a lot of time together in the room outside the room.

When you're gone, I think what you miss in those conversations is a concern. One of the things we put in place this year is kind of a reset for individuals coming back in.

We are going to have a number of situations this year with Committee members being out of the room. Kentucky, Duke. Kevin White's son of course is the head coach at Florida. He'll be asked to step out of the room in those circumstances. Bruce with Creighton. Myself. Perhaps others.

I think what I look at, one is a level of trust, one is a level of integrity. It's the right thing to have individuals out of the room no matter if it's the bubble or the 1 line.

The reason for that is it allows very frank conversations to take place about those teams. When you reenter, you're back, reengaged with the conversation with the rest of the field.

Where it is on the line I think has no difference. I always enjoy being in the conversation more for the 1 line than the bubble. But that's the way things go in this tournament. It's what makes it crazy.

Thank you so much. Appreciate it. Look forward to an exciting week here. A lot of conversation. Selection show on Sunday, then hopefully one of the great, great NCAA basketball tournaments.

DAVE WORLOCK: Thanks, Mark. Just a reminder that Mark will be available for another media teleconference at 9 p.m. eastern Sunday night after the selection show. Thanks for listening.

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