It will be on us before we know it. The selection committee will go into seclusion, watching conference tournaments, accessing reams of data, poring over the relative merits of selecting team A, which has a moderate record in a tough conference, versus team B, which fattened its record in an easy conference. In the end, they do a pretty good job, though sorting out the teams when they get down to the last three or four in, can really be tough. How it works can be pretty interesting, though.
As we know, sixty eight teams are given 'dance tickets'. Thirty two of these bids are 'automatic', being champions of their respective conferences. These include thirty on conference tournament champioNs, plus the Ivy League regular season champion, as the Ivies do not have a conference tournament. That means that the committee only selects thirty six teams of the sixty eight. There are nine of the thirty two conferences who are strong enough in basketball that their champion would be among the best teams in the country anyway. This is significant because if an interloper wins their conference tournament, their best team is sure of an at large bid. For an extreme example, say Vanderbilt wins the SEC tournament. Kentucky is sure to gt a bid anyway, so one fewer at large team can go. A Vandy SEC tourney win migt, for example, knock LSU out of an at large bid.
We have heard it said that if you don't get picked for the big dance, you are at best the 69th best team in the country. Because of all the automatic bids for small conferences, it is quite possible that you might be the 48th best team in the country and not get selected.
RPI and BPI are two of the measurements commonly used to rank teams, and they give us at least a reasonable picture of who is likely to make it into the tournament and who is not.
Alabama now stands at 65 on the RPI index as of this moment, and we have three games left versus teams ranked above us in this metric, Georgia and Ole Miss at home, and at aTm. As of this moment Georgia is considered on 'the bubble' while the others are considered 'in'. We need to pile up some wins here to have a shot. I personally believe that we need to run the table in the regular season and win at least one game in the SEC tournament to get beyond the bubble. Interestingly enough, we could be battling UCLA, whom we beat at home in a nail biter, for one of the at large spots. We have a shot, which is all we can ask for at this point.
As we know, sixty eight teams are given 'dance tickets'. Thirty two of these bids are 'automatic', being champions of their respective conferences. These include thirty on conference tournament champioNs, plus the Ivy League regular season champion, as the Ivies do not have a conference tournament. That means that the committee only selects thirty six teams of the sixty eight. There are nine of the thirty two conferences who are strong enough in basketball that their champion would be among the best teams in the country anyway. This is significant because if an interloper wins their conference tournament, their best team is sure of an at large bid. For an extreme example, say Vanderbilt wins the SEC tournament. Kentucky is sure to gt a bid anyway, so one fewer at large team can go. A Vandy SEC tourney win migt, for example, knock LSU out of an at large bid.
We have heard it said that if you don't get picked for the big dance, you are at best the 69th best team in the country. Because of all the automatic bids for small conferences, it is quite possible that you might be the 48th best team in the country and not get selected.
RPI and BPI are two of the measurements commonly used to rank teams, and they give us at least a reasonable picture of who is likely to make it into the tournament and who is not.
Alabama now stands at 65 on the RPI index as of this moment, and we have three games left versus teams ranked above us in this metric, Georgia and Ole Miss at home, and at aTm. As of this moment Georgia is considered on 'the bubble' while the others are considered 'in'. We need to pile up some wins here to have a shot. I personally believe that we need to run the table in the regular season and win at least one game in the SEC tournament to get beyond the bubble. Interestingly enough, we could be battling UCLA, whom we beat at home in a nail biter, for one of the at large spots. We have a shot, which is all we can ask for at this point.
