Mississippi State figures to hear its name called March 16 when the 64-team field for the NCAA Division I women’s basketball tournament is announced on ESPN.
Where MSU and a number of other teams will wind up, though, is anyone’s guess. That’s why Charlie Creme will have plenty of pencils ready to chart the shifting landscape in space lovingly known as Bracketology on ESPN.com.
On Thursday, Creme kicked off a two-day set of interviews designed to educate members of the media on the thinking of the NCAA tournament selection committee. Creme’s vernacular included terms like “procedural bumps” and “quality wins.” Those are terms MSU coach Vic Schaefer understands very well. But for those of us who aren’t as versed in the language of tournament selection committees, it was illuminating for Creme to explain the logic the men and women on that committee will use to pick the at-large teams to round out the field for March Madness.
First, a little background is needed. On Feb. 12, the NCAA tournament selection committee announced its top 20 seeds as a guide to help set the stage for the next month. Dru Hancock, the chair of the Division I Women’s Basketball Committee, made it clear that the announcement would have no bearing on the final teams that were selected. With that being said, fans of MSU quickly noticed that the Bulldogs, who were ranked No. 13 in The Associated Press poll, weren’t included in the top 20 seeds. Surprisingly, Texas A&M, a team MSU defeated 63-61 in overtime on Feb. 8, was in the top 20 with California, Oklahoma, Washington, Stanford, and George Washington. Those five teams were ranked below MSU in The AP poll released the week of Feb. 9.
Followers of Creme might have been surprised when they looked at the NCAA tournament selection committee’s top 20 seeds. Those who are Bracketology junkies know that Creme had slotted MSU as a No. 4 seed, which means the program was a contender, in Creme’s mind, to play host to the first and second rounds of the NCAA tournament. MSU never has played host to the NCAA tournament.
After the NCAA tournament selection committee released its top 20 seeds, Creme said he went back to work to examine the factors that knocked MSU back to a No. 6 seed, which is where he has the team slotted this week. Creme said Thursday the tournament selection committee doesn’t take The AP poll or the USA Today poll, which is voted on by coaches, into consideration when it picks the 64-team field. He also said head-to-head results aren’t the “ultimate decider” as to which team gets picked over another. Instead, he said the tournament selection committee will use several criteria, including Ratings Percentage Index (RPI) and Strength of Schedule (SOS), to pick what it feels are the most deserving teams.
One of the factors Creme used was MSU’s SOS, particularly in non-conference games. Even though MSU went 15-0 in those games, a closer look indicates seven of those victories came against teams with RPIs of 200 or higher, according to RealTimeRPI.com.
Creme also said the definition of a “quality win” can be a subjective thing. When comparing MSU and Texas A&M, RealTimeRPI.com says MSU has four quality non-conference wins — Arkansas State, West Virginia, Western Kentucky, and Southern Mississippi — and five quality wins in the SEC, while Texas A&M has three and six.
That’s just part of the equation. From there, Creme said, the tournament selection committee has to sort the teams into four 16-team brackets as evenly as possible. It also has to make sure teams from the same conference don’t play each other until the regional final. Another factor the committee considers is that the top 16 seeds — Nos. 1-4 in each bracket — can’t fall victim to a “procedural bump” and be moved one seed line.
As a result, Creme said he was forced to bump MSU from a No. 18 seed, which would be a No. 5 seed, to a No. 21 seed, which would be a No. 6, in his latest Bracketology.
“My evaluation of Mississippi State wasn’t in tune with the committee,” Creme said. “There are a lot of different ways to look at Mississippi State. That is where the gap is between what I was saying and what they were saying. The committee has a lot of conversations and one of them is about non-conference Strength of Schedule and overall Strength of Schedule. Those two things are kind of out of balance because their non-conference schedule was particularly weak.”
Still, MSU won all of those games and enters its final regular-season game against Ole Miss at 1 p.m. Sunday with a school-record 25 victories and a chance to set a program record with its 11th SEC win. Creme said those feel good stories, as well as schools with gaudy attendance numbers, don’t mean anything when the tournament selection committee evaluates teams.
That’s part of the reason Creme said the tournament selection committee most likely doesn’t consider MSU’s victory against Southern Miss as a “quality win.” With a RPI of 96 prior to games played Thursday, Creme said Southern Miss likely isn’t going to make the NCAA tournament, so that victory doesn’t carry as much weight as one against a team with a higher RPI.
But Creme said all isn’t lost. If you need proof, just look at what happened Thursday night. Missouri upset Texas A&M, Northwestern routed Rutgers, and Georgia Tech beat Duke. Prior to that, Ole Miss upset Kentucky. Those results all matter because Texas A&M, Kentucky, and Duke were in the tournament selection committee’s top 20, while Creme had Rutgers as a No. 5 seed. The losses carry even more weight because Missouri and Georgia Tech likely won’t make the NCAA tournament.
Will those losses and other upsets in the next few weeks be enough to catapult MSU back to a No. 4 seed and into the discussion to play host to the first and second rounds? Who knows. That’s why it is called March Madness. Creme said MSU still can improve its fortunes if it does what it is supposed to, which would mean beat Ole Miss and, possibly, win a game in the SEC tournament next week in North Little Rock, Arkansas.
In fact, Creme said he had moved MSU up to No. 17, which was one spot away from No. 16 and a chance to play at home. He said that before No. 11 lost to No. 2 South Carolina 69-50.
“The chances are there, especially when you have teams like Stanford, Cal and Kentucky in front of them,” Creme said.
Creme doesn’t know how it will all play out, but he will continue to crunch the numbers and mix and match teams according to the NCAA tournament selection committee’s rules. The good news is MSU can control its destiny. A win against Ole Miss and a victory in the quarterfinals of the SEC tournament would keep it in the mix for a top-four seed. A trip to the SEC tournament final and a victory there would make all of the talk moot because MSU would earn the league’s automatic bid to the NCAA tournament and likely elevate it to a top-three seed.
No one would have predicted MSU could have been in that discussion at the beginning of the season. For Creme, that is another part of what makes the final weeks of the regular season so special and keeps him going back to the desk drawer for an eraser and a sharper pencil.
Adam Minichino is sports editor of The Dispatch. He can be reached at [email protected]. Follow him on Twitter @ctsportseditor.
Adam Minichino is the former Sports Editor for The Commercial Dispatch.
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