What criteria does the NCAA actually use in bracket decision-making?

[Victory Lap]

There are dozens, if not hundreds, of factors that the seeding committee considers when making bracket decisions for the at-large bids. There is no clear standard, as Bilas highlighted on ESPN today, which is why people get frustrated and end up talking past each other on TV and at water coolers all over.

I bet we could come up with a list of the factors that's pretty close to accurate. Just remember that these are factors weighed, not rules applied. He's a first stab at it, in no particular order, recognizing that many of the bullets are redundant:

The Obvious
(1) RPI
(2) SOS
(3) Total Wins - (Dick Vitale - I know, not the best source - said today that no team with 28 wins against Div. 1 teams has ever missed the tourney).
(4) Quality Wins
(5) Quality Road Wins
(6) Nonconference schedule (ties in with SOS)
(7) Other traditional and/or novel metrics
(8) The "eye" test

The Practical
(1) Conference - trying to avoid having conference opponents play each other in the early rounds
(2) Conference - trying to have big conference teams face small conference teams and vice versa
(3) Geography - rewarding top seeds with a quasi home crowd
(4) Basic seeding principles - top 1 seed generally gets weakest 2 seed, and so on

The Won't Admit
(1) Giving smaller schools a chance while snubbing bigger schools, hoping for a "cinderella" story
(2) Lobbyist influence (whether TV networks or conference presidents and so on)
(3) Money - though I'm not sure exactly how that influence works out, I'd be a fool to assume it doesn't
(4) Past success

I've missed a LOT; of that I'm sure. Curious to see what everyone thinks the committee is ACTUALLY considering versus what they say they are considering. Cheers.

 

[RF2044]

It varies a bit from year to year, and different selection committees undoubtedly weight different combinations of factors differently than other years--typically when it comes to evaluating teams outside of the top few seeds.

 

[Orangezoo]

i am taking a wild guess there are some give and takes for seeding that revolve around matchups. I could see them bumping up montana giving us a little better matchup considering we were sent out west with a 2nd rd matchup thats basically a road game despite us being the better seed. i felt that way when we got stephen f austin too as they were much more like a 15-16 than a 14 that year..

 

[HarrisonJBounel]

 

[bevosu]

Bilas seemed to be saying that they weigh the bad loses much more than the good wins.