This will be some very informal writing on how to fix the selection process for the field of 64. After watching the recent selection announcement and the disparity in outcomes (*cough cough* Starkville), I've brainstormed and came up with a few ideas to improve equity in the process. Here are the four things I came up with:
1) Committee - the committee needs to be realigned and term limits should be cut in half from 4 years to 2 years. It should consist of five people from the power 5 and then five from the non-power 5 for a total of 10 people. The non-power 5 spots should be divided into five pools based on conference and rotated between those conferences every 2 years. My proposed pools are listed below:
Pool A - C-USA, AAC, Sun Belt, MVC
Pool B - WCC, Big West, MWC, WAC
Pool C - Southland, A-Sun, SoCon, Big East, CAA
Pool D - OVC, America East, Big South, A10, Horizon, MAC
Pool E - Summit, Patriot, NEC, SWAC, MEAC, Ivy, MAAC
These pools balance geography (the west is guaranteed 2 spots) and competitiveness with the top non power conferences being rotated more often than the bottom non power conferences.
2) Video - this should be fairly straightforward. The committee needs to have their meetings streamed and available for viewing much like a government entity. This will Hold Them Accountable™ and prevent any deal making where committee members get their school a favorable draw because of their position.
3) New selection metric - the RPI is an antiquated way to measure teams. The committee needs to adopt a more modern metric where margin of victory is taken into account. The basketball process was modernized a few years ago when the RPI was gotten rid of to make way for the efficiency-based NET. A rating system comparable to the Massey rankings would be a much more ideal and accurate way to determine how good a team is.
4) S-Curve - the field needs to be seeded 1-64 like the basketball tournament is seeded 1-68. The #1 overall seed should get the #32 overall seed (the weakest #2 seed). The #16 overall seed should get the #17 overall seed (the strongest #2 seed). And so on. The bracket should be based on competitiveness and not geography. The strongest #4 seed Wright State shouldn't be playing a top 3 seed while the #13 overall seed ECU gets a bottom 2 team in the field because of geography. The decision to seed teams from 1-16 (changed from 1-8) that was made in the fall of 2017 was a good move but needs to be taken a step further.
