Agreed - very, very good listen. I listened at the office yesterday afternoon at the end of the day. I like how Russ & his Dad used to fill out their own brackets before the selection show. I might have to do that this year just for kicks.


Several questions I'd like to delve into with Jim, or anyone on the committee include:

*Why is so much emphasis place on in conference wins when all conferences aren't equal?
*What do they suggest schools that only get one to three games against the top 25 or fifty do when those big conference schools won't play them?
*How much of the metrics (Ken Pom, RPI, BPI, SOS) get used in decision making versus simply looking at "quality wins"?
*What generally do they recommend when they offer feedback to schools that just missed?


I really like how he answers questions about avoiding bias, how much time and effort they put into it, and the lines of thinking.

After hearing this, my biggest remaining complaint will be how to allow top shelf mid-majors to get more consideration over bubble teams like K-State, TCU, Clemson (who unbelievably is still being discussed), Vanderbilt, etc.

Mike DeCourcy entered a little debate with Seth Davis on twitter yesterday - essentially his point was that just because a team has a strong SOS, and won more than they lost, doesn't mean it's a really good team. I fairly sure Vandy was the team in question, but one could argue against others in that case, such as Georgia, Illinois, and Clemson, who all have top-30 SOS numbers.

I really do think a simple decision to exclude teams with a below .500 conference record from at-large consideration would solve a lot of the issues, regardless of how great that conference was in a particular season. Examples include the ACC this year, and the Big East about 5-6 years ago.

They are in. Most predictions I've seen have them in the 6 or 7 seed range currently. They are 8-3 against top 100 RPI team with 2 of those losses to Gonzaga. The other loss is to a top 50 RPI team (top 75 KenPom). Monmouth had a strong resume last year but not as strong as St. Mary's. That being said, if they do lose to Gonzaga tonight you can be assured that the committee will screw them with an 8 or 9 seed.

Should "never-leave-upstate New York for a non-con game" Syracuse get an invite?