Understanding At-Large Bids in NCAA Basketball
March Madness is a highly anticipated and watched event in sports. The NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament is a single-elimination tournament of 68 teams that compete in seven rounds for the national championship. This article delves into the intricacies of how teams secure their spots in this prestigious tournament, with a particular focus on at-large bids.
The Road to March Madness
The NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament, also known as March Madness or The Big Dance, is a single-elimination tournament played in the United States to determine the men's college basketball national champion of the Division I level in the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA). The tournament was first conducted in 1939 and currently consists of 68 teams. The first NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament was in 1939 and was held every year until the 2019-20 season.
A Brief History of the Tournament
The tournament has evolved significantly since its inception. In 1951, the field doubled to 16, and kept expanding over the next few decades until 1985, when the modern format of a 64-team tournament began. In 2001, after the Mountain West Conference joined Division I and received an automatic bid, pushing the total teams to 65, a single game was added prior to the first round. The 68-team format was adopted in 2011; it had remained largely unchanged since 1985 when it expanded to 64 teams. Before then, the tournament size varied from as little as 8 to as many as 53. The field was restricted to conference champions until at-large bids were extended in 1975 and teams were not fully seeded until 1979.
Selection Sunday: The Unveiling of the Bracket
Selection Sunday is the day when the Selection Committee reveals the full NCAA tournament bracket, including all teams and all seeds. On Selection Sunday, before any tournament game is played, those teams are ranked 1 through 68 by the Selection Committee, with the best team in college basketball - based on regular season and conference tournament performance - sitting at No. 1. Those 64 teams are split into four regions of 16 teams each, with each team being ranked 1 through 16. Every March Madness game will be broadcast on either TBS, TNT, TruTV or CBS.
How Teams Earn a Bid
There are two avenues for an invitation to the NCAA tournament. Thirty-one teams automatically qualify for the tournament by winning their conference tournament, played during the two weeks before the tournament. The remaining teams rely on the selection committee to award them an at-large bid in the tournament. The selection committee only selects the teams (37 for men and women) who receive at-large bids.
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Automatic Bids: Winning Your Way In
The 31 Division I conferences all receive an automatic bid, which they each award to the team that wins the postseason conference tournament. Regardless of how a team performed during the regular season, if they are eligible for postseason play and win their conference tournament, they receive a bid to the NCAA tournament.
At-Large Bids: Earning a Spot Through Performance
An at-large bid is the only avenue into the NCAA tournament for a team that didn't win its conference tournament. The selection committee convenes on Selection Sunday, after all regular season and conference tournament games are played, and decides which 37 teams that are not automatic qualifiers have the pedigree to earn an invitation to the tournament.
The Selection Committee: Gatekeepers of the Tournament
The NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Committee is responsible for selecting, seeding and bracketing the field for the NCAA tournament. The NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Committee is responsible for selecting, seeding and bracketing the field for the NCAA Tournament. The 10-member NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Committee is responsible for selecting, seeding and bracketing the field for the NCAA Tournament. The 12-member NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Committee is responsible for selecting, seeding and bracketing the field for the NCAA tournament. The Division I men’s and women’s committees are composed of conference commissioners, athletics directors and experienced administrators from across Division I basketball.
The selection committee must first decide which teams will compete in the tournament. Though each conference receives only one automatic bid, the selection committee may select any number of at-large teams from each conference. The at-large teams generally come from college basketball's top conferences, including the ACC, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, SEC and to a lesser extent, the American, A-10, Mountain West and WCC.
To avoid potential conflicts of interest, committee members must leave the room when their own school is being discussed (or schools in the case of the conference commissioners). The member may be invited to answer factual questions regarding their team or teams (e.g., status of player injuries).
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Factors Considered for At-Large Bids
There are a multitude of stats and rankings that the Selection Committee takes into account, but there is no set formula that determines whether a team receives an at-large bid or not. The committee’s charge is simple: Select the best 37 at-large teams to join the 31 AQs.
The committees evaluate teams starting with the first night of the season and all the way until Selection Sunday using data-driven metrics, game results and expert observations to determine the best at-large teams and ensure competitive balance in the tournaments. The committees meet multiple times throughout the season to analyze team performance and adjust rankings accordingly.
The selection committee uses a number of factors to rank teams for the S-curve, including record, strength of schedule, and the NET in the Division I men's tournament and the RPI in all other championship tournaments. Relative subjective comparison of individual teams close on the S-Curve are also considered.
- NET (NCAA Evaluation Tool): NCAA Evaluation Tool was a new ranking in 2018-19 that relies on game results, strength of schedule, game location, scoring margin, net offensive and defensive efficiency, and the quality of wins and losses. The ranking replaces RPI as the main sorting tool for the selection committee. NET vs. Compares a team’s results to what a bubble team (NET No. 45) would be expected to do vs..
- BPI (College Basketball Power Index): College Basketball’s Power Index, invented by ESPN, is a statistic that measures how far above or below average every team is, and projects how well the team will do going forward. The index uses two measurements to do this: BPI Offense (measure of a team’s offensive strength compared to an average offense) and BPI Defense (measure of a team’s defensive strength compared to an average defense). BPI is calculated by finding the difference between these two measurements.
- Strength of Record (SOR): From ESPN: “Strength of Record (SOR) is a measure of team accomplishment based on how difficult a team's W-L record is to achieve.
- Quadrants (Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4): In order to determine the strength of a team’s wins or losses, the selection committee divides the team’s record into four quadrants on each team sheet. The quadrants are meant to serve as an indicator of how good a team’s wins are, or how bad their losses are.
- Team Sheet: A one-page document for every team in Division I that helps the committee get a complete picture of that team’s performance during the season.
Additionally, committee members consider how teams do on the road and at neutral courts, strength of conference and schedule, non-conference strength of schedule, record against other selected tournament teams, and other extenuating factors.
The "Bubble" and the "First Four Out"
A team that is “on the bubble” for the NCAA tournament is one whose qualification for the tournament could go either way. The committee also selects four additional teams, the "First Four Out", who do not qualify for the tournament. When ranking all 68 teams in the NCAA tournament, the First Four Out fall in spots 69-72.
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Last four in - Another unofficial term, the "last four in" refers to the final four teams that receive at-large bids to the tournament. These are teams that are usually on the bubble as Selection Sunday draws near.
Historical Perspective and Changes in Selection Criteria
Through the 2018 men's tournament and 2019 women's tournament, the RPI rating was often considered a factor in selecting and seeding the final few teams in the tournament field. However, the NCAA selection committee in 2015 said the RPI was only utilized for grouping the teams into groups such as top 50 and top 100 teams, to value the wins and losses, and not as a factor for selection. During the 2018 offseason, the NCAA announced that the RPI would no longer be used in the selection process for the Division I men's tournament.
Seeding and Bracketing: Placing Teams in the Tournament
The selection committee's work to seed the teams is just as vital as their work to select the at-large teams. While the selection process starts before the seeding process, the two often overlap. The twelve-member basketball selection committee is made up of athletic directors and conference commissioners throughout Division I men's and women's athletics with separate committees for the men's and women's tournaments.
Though the brackets only feature the seed numbers 1-16 in each region, the committee first assembles a overall seed ranking of selected team from 1 through 68, formatted as an "S-curve". The "S-curve" table in the guidelines displays four teams to a row, alternating left-to-right and right-to left. In theory, the teams 1-4 on the seed list will all be #1 seeds in their regions (the #1 "seed line"), 5-8 will be #2 seeds in their regions (the #2 seed line), and so on; however, bracketing rules allow minor deviation from this when necessary to meet other bracketing requirements.
The S-curve rankings are most important for keeping each region balanced, the ideal being that each region will be equally strong. The committee tries to ensure that the top four seeds in each region are comparable to the top four teams in every other region. The seeds are also ranked overall from 1 to 68.
Once the S-curve is established, the committee must place the teams throughout the four regions. Typically the cities selected will be spread throughout the country and conform roughly to the old geographic distinctions. While the regions are named for certain cities, the first and second round games are played in different cities which need not be anywhere near the regional finals.
A number of complex rules govern the seeding process, so it is not as simple as merely following the S-curve, although that is the top priority according to the NCAA's rules. Better teams have priority in remaining close to home, but no hosting institution's team can actually play at the location where the institution is hosting tournament games (generally, games are hosted on neutral courts, so this is not usually a problem).
Teams are spread out according to conference. The first three teams within the top 4 seeded lines selected from each conference must be placed in different regions. When a conference has more than three teams in the tournament, the committee tries to seed the teams so that they cannot meet until the regional final. The committee may move a team up or down one seed from its seed line in the S-curve in order to preserve other principles.
Regional Designations
The regions were originally referred to as East, Mideast, Midwest, and West. In 1985, the Mideast designation became the Southeast, and later the South Regional in 1998. The women's tournament continued to use the Mideast terminology through 2004. In 2004, the NCAA started to identify the men's regions only by the city in which the regional semifinals and finals were played, with the same change being made for the women's tournament in 2005. The NCAA reverted to the East/South/Midwest/West designations for the men's tournament starting in 2007, but continues to designate women's regionals by their cities.
The Tournament Structure
The tournament consists of 68 teams competing in seven rounds of a single-elimination bracket. The tournament is divided into four regions, with each region having sixteen to eighteen teams. Before the first weekend, eight teams compete in the First Four to advance to the first round. Two games pair the lowest-ranked conference champions and two games pair the lowest-ranked at-large qualifiers. The first and second rounds are played during the first weekend, the regional semifinals and regional finals during the second weekend, and the national semifinals and championship game during the third weekend. Regional rounds are branded as the Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight and the third weekend is branded as the Final Four, all named after the number of teams remaining at the beginning of the round. All games, including the First Four, are scheduled so that teams will have one rest day between each game.
Filling Out Your Bracket
Every March Madness game will be broadcast on either TBS, TNT, TruTV or CBS. By filling out a bracket! The Bracket Challenge Game, the official bracket game of the NCAA, will open immediately after the committee announces the field on Selection Sunday. The brackets will lock before the first game of the first round begins, so get your picks in before then.
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