With Selection Sunday just 10 days away, I'm eagerly awaiting the full bracket reveal. Sure, we know who the national title contenders will probably be, but it's going to be fun to theorize some exciting second-weekend matchups. Duke vs. Marquette for the Coach K-Wojo battle, anyone?
But this year will be particularly interesting with the introduction of the NET, the NCAA Evaluation Tool, as a new metric that will be used by the selection committee to figure out the 36 at-large bids and the seeding of the 68-team field. We know the ingredients of the NET. We don't know the recipe. That means it's hard to get a sense of what other metrics the committee will use along with the NET to fill out the field.
What we do know about the NET is that it doesn't favor mid-major teams. Of the current top 40 in NET, there are just 10 mid-major teams—three from the American, two from the West Coast, two from the Mountain West and one apiece from the Mid-American, Southern and Atlantic 10.
Peek a bit further down the list and you see No. 44 Furman, No. 45 Belmont, No. 46 Lipscomb, No. 47 New Mexico State and No. 50 Murray State.
Now, it's not like you can make the argument that these teams are more deserving, at least on a pure resume basis, than a team such as N.C. State, which currently ranks 31st. The Wolfpack may very well end the season with just 10 losses, more than half of which will come against top-four seeds. The difference is that N.C. State didn't even try in non-conference play—the Wolfpack played the second-worst schedule in the country outside of their league, and their only semi-impressive win was at home against Auburn.
Lipscomb, on the other hand, gave it a shot. The Bisons played the 29th-best no-nconference schedule, taking on a quality mid-major opponent in Belmont (which should also make the NCAA tournament even if it doesn't win its conference tournament) twice, visiting a pair of ACC foes in Clemson and Louisville, going to TCU and hosting Vermont.
Lipscomb won just one of those games. I'm not a believer in Seth Davis' rule that you have to go .500 in your league for an at-large bid—it's too much of a hard-and-fast rule, just given how things can vary from year to year. But I do think the selection committee should make non-conference scheduling one of its priorities, and while it's not to disregard winning, teams that take on a challenge deserve to reap the benefits.
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Twitter: @mpgladstone13
A junior from just outside Philadelphia, Mitchell is probably reminding you how the Eagles won the Super Bowl this year and that the Phillies are definitely on the rebound. Outside of The Chronicle, he majors in Economics, minors in Statistics and is working toward the PJMS certificate, in addition to playing trombone in the Duke University Marching Band. And if you're getting him a sandwich with beef and cheese outside the state of Pennsylvania, you best not call it a "Philly cheesesteak."