Jul 14, 2017
The men's basketball selection committee will put a greater emphasis on quality road wins beginning next season, the NCAA announced Friday.
Next year, teams aiming for the NCAA tournament will be evaluated according to quality home wins (top 30 in the RPI), neutral-site wins (top 50) and road wins (top 75). The tiers expand from there with the same criteria.
A team that plays on the road and beats an opponent rated 50th will get more credit for that victory than it would for a home win over a squad ranked 40th. The change also will ensure teams will not suffer the same penalties for road losses as they do for home losses in the selection process.
The move also signals an ongoing move away from the RPI, largely a raw strength-of-schedule metric that values quality wins and minimizes the impact of location, as a significant factor in the committee's decisions. Per the NCAA release, the committee expects to employ a new composite metric by the 2018-19 season after meeting with various experts in recent months.
For years, many programs have manipulated their nonconference résumés by facing solid opponents at home and avoiding road matchups against quality teams before conference play. But this adjustment could encourage a shift toward more high-profile road games for contenders and perhaps the restart of true home-and-home series that coaches have squashed in recent years because of fears they'll damage their résumés.
The new composite metric will likely incorporate the new analytics tools that offer a more complete picture of a team.
Dan Gavitt, the NCAA's senior vice president of basketball, said "The bottom line is we recognize the need to continue using more modern metrics and the need to make those more front and center in the sorting of data for the selection and seeding process."
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Myron MedcalfESPN Staff Writer
The men's basketball selection committee will put a greater emphasis on quality road wins beginning next season, the NCAA announced Friday.
Next year, teams aiming for the NCAA tournament will be evaluated according to quality home wins (top 30 in the RPI), neutral-site wins (top 50) and road wins (top 75). The tiers expand from there with the same criteria.
A team that plays on the road and beats an opponent rated 50th will get more credit for that victory than it would for a home win over a squad ranked 40th. The change also will ensure teams will not suffer the same penalties for road losses as they do for home losses in the selection process.
The move also signals an ongoing move away from the RPI, largely a raw strength-of-schedule metric that values quality wins and minimizes the impact of location, as a significant factor in the committee's decisions. Per the NCAA release, the committee expects to employ a new composite metric by the 2018-19 season after meeting with various experts in recent months.
For years, many programs have manipulated their nonconference résumés by facing solid opponents at home and avoiding road matchups against quality teams before conference play. But this adjustment could encourage a shift toward more high-profile road games for contenders and perhaps the restart of true home-and-home series that coaches have squashed in recent years because of fears they'll damage their résumés.
The new composite metric will likely incorporate the new analytics tools that offer a more complete picture of a team.
Dan Gavitt, the NCAA's senior vice president of basketball, said "The bottom line is we recognize the need to continue using more modern metrics and the need to make those more front and center in the sorting of data for the selection and seeding process."
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