NCAA 2021 BASKETBALL CHAMPIONSHIP

March 14, 2021

Mitch Barnhart

Dan Gavitt

News Conference

DAVE WORLOCK: Good evening, everyone. Welcome to tonight's Division I Men's Basketball Committee chair teleconference with Mitch Barnhart, the director of athletics at the University of Kentucky and the chair of the Men's Basketball Committee, who just oversaw the five-day process of selecting, seeding and bracketing teams for the 2021 men's basketball championship, which begins Thursday night with the First Four in West Lafayette and Bloomington, Indiana.

We're going to jump right into the Q&A because I know many of you are anxious to ask questions.

Q. With UCLA, they faded late in the season, lost four straight. You had them as an 11 going to the First Four. Take us through the process of how they ultimately landed where they did.

MITCH BARNHART: We go through the process with every team about who you played, where did you play them, and what was the result. They have obviously a 17-9 record, their strength of record was solid. They were 5-5 on the road. Obviously they struggled down the stretch.

But they've got in the first quadrant a couple wins, were 3-3 in quadrant two. Their best win was home with Colorado. We just try and evaluate them against other teams. The committee looks at it from a variety of lenses. We have to ask ourselves do they have enough to get into the field. We thought they did. We thought their seed was hurt by the way they played a little bit at the end of the year.

Q. I think a lot of people were surprised that Utah State got in with an 11 seed, not maybe one of the First Four games. What the committee's perspective, what made you feel they were deserving of that 11 seed?

MITCH BARNHART: Utah State had the best net among the teams that we had our under consideration board on Saturday night. Their two wins over San Diego State were of high quality, as we valued San Diego State. They were obviously a 6 seed on our board this year. They won two of three against some fellow programs that were under consideration, a team like Colorado State. They've obviously had a remarkable year. They're a talented group of basketball players. Think they were worthy of an at-large bid.

Q. A question about LSU's seeding. Coach Wade said he didn't think their run in the tournament had much impact on it. I wonder if you could comment on their seeding compared to a team like Florida, who obviously didn't make it as far in the SEC tournament, not as many wins.

MITCH BARNHART: Certainly. Obviously they had a really remarkable run in the SEC tournament. We had a plan in place for them to move up some more had they won the tournament today. Obviously they've got five wins in the first quadrant of the net in our team sheets, but they did lose the head-to-head with Florida. They've got good metrics, but both predictive and results based, they're both solid.

We felt like after they were the 29 in the seed list, they were on the 29th spot, which puts them at the top of the 8 line. Obviously we come to this through the prism of 10 lenses, and we look at it from a variety of ways. We have folks that vote as they see it. As we scrubbed it multiple times, that's where LSU landed, at the top of the 8 line.

Q. You were asked on CBS about Louisville. You mentioned how Oregon State and Georgetown stole the last two bids, which I understand. I think what people in Louisville are interested in is why they didn't get in compared to Wichita State, which had a lower net, and Pomeroy or Drake or Michigan State or UCLA?

MITCH BARNHART: That's a lot of teams.

I think, again, we look at it and we go through votes in the beginning of the process. We have an initial ballot, then we work our way through continuing to add teams to the field. There's 37 slots, and we continue to add teams. We see teams as we go. Again, you have to have eight votes to get onto the board. That is the process.

Louisville just didn't gather enough votes to get on the board early on. They got the on the board, and they were there, they were under consideration. They had one Q1 win in their résumé, and they had 20 other opportunities.

There are some pieces to that. They didn't have many wins against teams in the field, that were in the tournament. So it's a combination of things. One was the timing of where they came in. Two was the Q1 wins. Three would have been the record against the tournament in the field.

They were close, but they fell victim to two great teams that took bids away from people on the at-large board.

Q. Only playing 20 games, did that hurt them?

MITCH BARNHART: No, I think we evaluated everyone's résumé based upon what was on it. Clearly they had, as I think about their conference record, opportunities within their league. They played seven games in quadrant one, and all against ACC opponents, and won one of those games. They had opportunities, and just couldn't complete enough of those to move them up the line.

The other part is we can't speculate about the games that have been canceled. They had two games against Syracuse that were canceled that may have told a different story. We can't speculate about that. That's asking us to do a lot and speculating into every situation.

Q. Villanova had a pretty serious injury at the end of their season to Collin Gillespie. Did you adjust their seeding on the seed list because of the injury?

MITCH BARNHART: I've had a chance to watch Collin for my entire time on the committee. I just have great respect for the way he plays the game, how hard he plays it. My heart went out to him when I saw the injury. I knew how important he was to the Villanova team. Certainly we kept an eye on that.

But at the end of the day it was a combination of things. Obviously they had some losses down the stretch, but you also had some teams that were behind them that were performing at a high level and began to make moves up the seed line, so to speak.

I think that the combination of they struggled down the stretch without him, and they had a chance obviously to spend a little time in preparation for the week ahead. But we're glad they're in the tournament. They're absolutely worthy -- not just worthy, but I think they can make a great tournament run. They've got a very talented team.

Safe to say their position on the seed list suffered a little bit because of the injury because of some of the losses they incurred. There are also some teams behind them that performed really, really well.

Q. Regarding Michigan State, you mentioned a couple times about who they played, when they played. Looking at strength of schedule, MSU was 8, Syracuse 57, Utah State 120, Michigan State with five quad wins to two, one for the other two teams. Why Michigan State on the First Four versus those other two? What were the mitigating factors there?

MITCH BARNHART: Obviously they had some quality wins. They beat the two No. 1 seeds in Illinois and Michigan, as well as the No. 2 seed in Ohio State. Those wins, their overall strength of record, obviously secured them a spot in the field.

The other part of the equation is they did have 12 losses, they struggled on the road, many of those were against quality competition, but their metrics were not great. They were 15-12. We couldn't overlook the high quality wins to put them in the field. We also had to balance that with the losses they incurred.

Q. You mentioned about the competition. With the Big Ten having such a strong strength of schedule, how does that balance against the other two?

MITCH BARNHART: I'm not sure which other two you're referring to.

Q. Syracuse and Utah State.

MITCH BARNHART: Wasn't sure who you were referring to. I apologize.

I'm trying to find my notes here. I think their strength of record was 38. They had a solid strength of record. Utah State had two really quality wins against San Diego State. Their net was the best among the teams that we had under our consideration board on Saturday night. They won two of three against another program that was under consideration. Their predictive metrics were good, as well. That was one of them.

Syracuse had several wins against teams in the field. Their number of wins that they had against tournament teams was solid. Their net and average predictive results based on the metrics matched up favorably with their peers. It often comes down to which group you're being compared against. That's sort of where we landed.

Q. Oklahoma State, a team that beat all of the 3 seeds, but got a 4 seed, had some good quad one wins. Talk about putting Oklahoma State in that 4 spot instead of maybe higher in the bracket.

MITCH BARNHART: Yeah, no, they had an unbelievable season. They've obviously had a really wonderful run here at the end of the year. So they also have a couple of losses in quad three. We used some of the predictive metrics to drive a lot of our discussion around our seeding.

The combination of those and the two losses in quad three was something that we actually valued as they went through the tournament. We had an opportunity to watch them. They probably moved up about a seed line as we looked at them. They did move up a seed line as we looked at them towards the end of the week.

They're certainly an exciting team to watch.

Q. Does the committee look at all at possible juicy down-the-road matchups, former coach sitting there in the 1 seed, Brad Underwood? Does the committee consider anything like that at all in the seeding?

MITCH BARNHART: We do not.

Q. When you look at the net rankings, you have Colgate at 9, then maybe also Loyola at 10, Michigan State which has beaten three top-10 teams in the last couple weeks, they're at 70, does that tell you that something is out of whack with the net in this year that everything is so different, that the formulas don't really translate to what you see?

MITCH BARNHART: I don't think that's the case at all. We're very confident in the net, the metric we've been working with for a few years now. We feel confident in it. Colgate is a little bit of an outlier. You can tell by their seed we didn't base that off the net.

I don't think there's a perfect metric out there. I think if everybody was looking for the perfect metric, you wouldn't have a committee that looked at it through the prism of different lenses.

In year one of the net, 15 of the top six teams on the net on Selection Sunday made it to the Sweet 16.

Q. I don't know. Does that mean that Loyola should be a 3 seed? Michigan State should not be close to the tournament? How do you decide when you're looking at the net what is valid and what isn't?

MITCH BARNHART: There's more to it than one metric. There is no Holy Grail, as they say. There's not one metric. Every committee member looks at it through a different prism. No different than a coach. We always love coaches that have different styles. One may want to run, one may want to slow it down. Someone likes a zone, someone likes man-to-man. There's different styles on the coaching floor, no different it is than when people look at different team, they look at them through different lenses.

Kenpom favored a team like Loyola as well. That's one of the premises of Kenpom. There is no one metric. We try and have a lot of things at our disposal, in our toolbox. We use more result-driven data for the selection. We lean into some of the predictive measurements as we see.

Q. In the committee's eyes, what helped separate Colorado, Oregon and USC when it came to determining their respective seeds?

MITCH BARNHART: Colorado had three victories over Southern Cal head-to-head. As we looked at that period, that's why you would see Colorado on the 5 line ahead of Southern Cal.

Oregon won the regular season championship, and Colorado made a run to the finals of the Pac-12 tourney. In the head-to-head matchup with Colorado, they split. Colorado had a net of 15, and Oregon had a net of 33 as we concluded.

Their strength of records were very similar. They had some losses that both of them that would in terms of quad three losses, they boat had some quad three losses.

Oregon had some significant injuries in games throughout the year, and some people that were missing. Now healthy and playing really, really well. They just hit a team that was hot in the Pac-12 tournament and made a run to get the AQ out of the Pac-12 in Oregon State.

Q. A question about the process and the discussion regarding the 2 line, particularly the back end of it, and how either Houston's win today in the conference tournament affected it or were they already slotted there before the game?

MITCH BARNHART: Houston was pretty firmly on the 2 line from the beginning of the week. They have been solid in that position. We've compared them with everyone above them and below them in terms of their résumé. They didn't get support to move off the 2 line in terms of moving up, but they've been solidly right there, and no one was able to pass them. They were right there in the 8 seed on the 2 line.

Q. Was Michigan the clear No. 1? Was there a gap there between them and the next team?

MITCH BARNHART: Michigan was the fourth No. 1. They obviously had an outstanding year. Just have a remarkable résumé, very deserving of being on the 1 line. They have hovered in that 2, 3, 4 slot all year long, behind Baylor and Michigan, all those folks that have been in the conversation for those spots from the beginning behind Gonzaga.

Alabama had a regular season and SEC tournament title that was in the top spot on the 2 line, No. 5. The injury was considered. Hopefully he can play in the tournament. But Illinois moved ahead of them based upon the head-to-head in Ann Arbor and winning the Big Ten tournament title today.

Q. Were there any teams that did tell you guys by last night they could not participate?

MITCH BARNHART: We were thankful that everyone was available to play and we were able to consider and evaluate everyone for the tournament.

Q. What were the factor or factors that had Colorado State just on the outside there?

MITCH BARNHART: Colorado State, is that what you said?

Q. Yes.

MITCH BARNHART: Colorado State had a win in the San Diego State game, in a game which it trailed by 26 points. Also had a road win against Utah State. They had some reasonable metrics, were obviously in the discussion for final at-large spots. That's why they were among the four that were the next four to get in on our replacement teams.

They lost two of three to Utah State, which was another team that was vying for the same position, for one of those final at-large spots. Just proved a lot to overcome. That's sort of where we landed. They lost two of three to Utah State. That was, again, somebody they were sort of in the same neighborhood with.

Q. Tony Bennett said tonight their last players won't get out of the COVID quarantine until Thursday. I know everybody has been cleared to play or has said they'll be available. How big of a concern is that for you, that they're going to be going right up until the edge to get to Indianapolis?

MITCH BARNHART: Clearly we want everyone to be able to participate in a safe and healthy way. The committee, our purview, is to evaluate and to seed those that are available. We have done that.

We will now hand the rest of this process over to the medical advisory group as well as Marion County, the officials and administrators at Virginia. They have been working very closely with all those officials and NCAA staff just to gently walk through and make sure we can get to the start line and tip the ball up for everybody, including the University of Virginia and Tony and his team. They are worthy and we're excited to have them in Indianapolis.

Q. How confident are you that you will be able to get the entire tournament done with the 68 teams you have slotted right now?

MITCH BARNHART: We're really confident. We think if we can get everyone here, they follow the health protocols once they get here, we have teams that come in with seven negative test, they will be tested and quarantined when they get here, they will be masked, socially distant, practice facilities sanitizing, all of the things that are in place for this to be an incredibly safe and healthy tournament.

With the Kinexon device is and all the pieces we have. If the teams continue to do the great work they've done just to get to the tournament, we will have a very safe, very healthy 67-game tournament and will crown a champion.

Q. Kind of a clarification. In the 1 through 68 seed list, VCU is one spot ahead of St. Bonaventure. Bonaventure is a 9 seed. Is the 1 through 68 seed list a mistake or is that a bracketing issue? Clarification on that?

MITCH BARNHART: It was strictly a bracketing issue. We had some conflicts. Because of that Maryland was blocked in all four regions, and we had to make a change with St. Bonaventure. That's why that occurred.

Q. Why VCU ahead of St. Bonaventure?

MITCH BARNHART: I'm sorry?

Q. VCU, you had them one spot ahead of St. Bonaventure, but they won the regular season and tournament titles in the Atlantic-10. I'm looking for maybe reasons why VCU would be ahead.

MITCH BARNHART: On the actual seed list, St. Bonaventure will be listed on the 37th spot and VCU will be on the 39th spot.

Q. The one that was sent out had VCU 38, Bonnie 39.

MITCH BARNHART: St. Bonaventure is 37 and VCU 39. We'll correct that.

Q. There's kind of a curiosity in the west region in that the 2, 3 and 4 seeds under Gonzaga are teams Gonzaga beat earlier this year in non-conference play. For the sake of people out here, give us a refresher on what limitations the committee labors under as far as keeping teams that have played each other away from each other in the tournament.

MITCH BARNHART: There's several principles that are involved. Depends on which conversations you're having. There are conference-in-conference protocols that we certainly try and pay attention to. There are teams we'd prefer to not have teams play each other in the tournament that have played multiple times if we can avoid that. There are principles in place, and we avoid those matchups early, especially early trying to push those later into the brackets. First round only. I apologize. That's the first round only on that.

Q. After that there's no particular protocols?

MITCH BARNHART: No, no.

Q. I was thinking earlier today about what you said, and I assume the committee, going into quarantine for about a month now. The thought crossed my mind about how many suitcases did you have to pack or how was laundry and all of that handled?

MITCH BARNHART: We packed for a while. Thank goodness I live close and I can drive. I was able to pack probably more than I need. But we're in good shape. The staff up here does a great job of keeping us organized. We have some laundry service, they've got us squared away with that, so we'll be in good shape.

We're through the first week, we've got three weeks of great basketball ahead of us.

Q. It's going to be a compelling tournament, how optimistic are you?

MITCH BARNHART: It's going to be a wonderful tournament. It's great to be even talking about throwing the ball up and getting going on Thursday. We're looking forward to that.

I think if you followed the tournaments, you followed college basketball, especially down the stretch here of the regular season and tournament play, you saw buzzer-beaters, tournament runs, people jumping around on the court, enjoying, celebrating together with coaches, locker room celebrations. That's what we've missed. We've missed that. It's time to get that going again. We're looking forward to celebrating with the young people in the game of college basketball here. It will be great.

Q. This might be a question better for Dan Gavitt, of this tournament process. Do you know the situation with Louisville and their possible replacement teams? They have to come to Indianapolis, correct? I just want to clarify that.

MITCH BARNHART: I'll defer to Dan.

DAN GAVITT: The replacement teams actually are going to stay on campus, practice, go to school, prepare there. If we call them up should we need them, we would provide transportation obviously and get them in with the deadline being Tuesday night. It's about a 48-hour window. They're not going to come into Indy unless they're needed.

Q. It was mentioned before Virginia's situation. Why were you okay with the idea that Virginia wouldn't be able to come in until next Friday? Why was everything okay with Virginia being considered if they can't get to Indianapolis until Friday?

DAN GAVITT: We were in regular communication with Virginia. As unfortunate as their situation was to not be able to complete the ACC tournament, it happened early enough that those impacted individuals that went into quarantine got clearance and approval from their local health officials to be quarantined for just seven days, which does match our medical protocols of the seven days of negative testing, then the ability to travel here to Indianapolis, meet our protocols, meet the protocols of the local health officials where they're located, and still get here in time to take the two negative tests upon arrival and prepare for their first game.

It was close, frankly. Had that happened over the weekend, yesterday or today, it probably would not have been able to happen and be accommodated. But it did happen within that window that both, A, first and foremost, it was something that the local health officials there were comfortable with, and B, it still met our medical protocols, and thus we were comfortable with the same arrangement.

Q. Could you take me through the process with Syracuse and what it was about them that got them into the field.

MITCH BARNHART: There's a lot of things that go into it. We started comparing their résumés with the final group of teams being considered for the at-large spots. They had a number of wins against the teams that were in the tournament. Their net and their predictive results-based metrics were very favorable against those peers and the people that they were being grouped with at the time and being evaluated with at the time.

That was where we started. They obviously got in the lens of the different members of the committee, felt that they were worthy of the at-large position, and they were given the opportunity to be in the field.

Their strength of record was 41. Again, 7 and 8 in quads one and two. They had some quality opportunities to get some quality wins, and they took advantage of several of them. That was important.

Q. I've heard you say a couple of times on the call that teams have been able to win game against teams already in the field. That seems to be a case for Syracuse, as well, correct?

MITCH BARNHART: They had four wins against teams in the field.

Q. Can you say one more time what is the drop dead sort of time for being able to replace any teams? How many teams have sort of been given the heads up of, If we do have to remove another team, you guys are a go?

MITCH BARNHART: Tuesday night. It would be Tuesday night.

Q. How many teams are kind of on hold waiting to see if there might be a replacement?

MITCH BARNHART: We have four.

Q. Do we know who those four are?

MITCH BARNHART: We named those. They were on the show. Louisville, Colorado State, St. Louis and Ole Miss.

Q. Regarding Virginia Tech, a team in the AP top 25 poll just last week, what went into them being No. 10 seed?

MITCH BARNHART: Appreciate you asking.

Obviously they lost some games during the course of the year. They had a couple of pauses. But they were able to complete 21 games. Their strength of record was really good at 39. They had a very good strength of record at 39. They had a couple of wins in quad one. One of those was early on in the season against Villanova.

They've sort of had down the stretch a hard time getting games in, especially late. That was difficult for them, I'm sure. But at the end of the day we felt like they were worthy of being in the field. When you match them up and scrub them against the other people in the tournament, it was sort of where they landed.

They have three wins against teams in the tournament. That was one of the things that helped get them into the tournament. Then we used some of the predictives to seed them.

Q. They did have two long pauses. Only played three games since February 6. Did that affect them being the No. 10 seed?

MITCH BARNHART: No, I just think it didn't give them as many opportunities, so we had to evaluate what we had in front of us. Again, you had three losses in the second quad. They did fine with the opportunities that they had. I'm sure they wished they had more of them.

I think the committee fairly evaluated that they were a worthy tournament team, and that's why they were placed in the field ultimately as an at-large.

Q. You said earlier in the call, in the release given out to us, Tech was the 37 overall seed. Is that actually not correct?

MITCH BARNHART: They were 38.

DAVE WORLOCK: We'd like to thank everyone for participating on tonight's call. NCAA.com/transcripts will be the place where the transcript for tonight's call will be placed. Enjoy March Madness. We look forward to seeing our talking with you from Indianapolis in the coming weeks.