This article is part of our RotoWire Bracketology series.

NCAA Bracketology 2025: Pressure on NCAA Committee Ahead of Selection Sunday

No matter what happens on Selection Sunday, someone will disagree with what the NCAA committee does. Last season, I didn't agree with the exclusion of Indiana State despite having a top 30 NET. Two seasons ago, Nevada was in the First Four despite having 11 losses and playing in the MWC. The Wolf Pack were in less than 50 percent of brackets at the Matrix and lost by 25 points in a play-in game.

The committee will make a weird decision or two, and there won't be an answer for it. It's still possible to try to get into the minds of the 12 members of the committee and decipher what it will do come Selection Sunday on March 16.

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NCAA Team Sheets

The committee uses seven metrics. All sport team sheets can be found on the NCAA rankings page, which is updated every day for college basketball. Wins Above Bubble (WAB) and Bart Torvik are the newest ones, though most college basketball diehards have been using Torvik for years.

KenPom and BPI round up the predictive metrics, while Strength of Record (SOR) and KPI are more resume-based.

My go-to metrics are KenPom and SOR. KenPom is the most famous of the bunch and is the most reliable. BPI hasn't been around as long and still includes preseason rankings into projections, which I don't always agree with. KPI is also fairly new, and I've never understood why it was one of the initial options for the team sheet.

SOR is my favorite resume metric since it's fairly simple and easy to find, whereas WAB is a bit newer. According to ESPN, SOR is "a measure of team accomplishment based on how difficult a team's W-L record is to achieve." Simple.

Predictive metrics are good for setting betting spreads and projecting your bracket, but resume metrics are often more helpful for how the committee seeds a team.

The committee follows a list of principles in order to come up with the final bracket. Following the selection of at-large teams, they seed every team one through 68 and finally that's put into a bracket.

There are some rules in play this season that aren't often required.

Each of the first four teams selected from a conference shall be placed in different regions if they are seeded on the first four lines.

This doesn't happen every year, but this season it may apply to both the SEC and Big Ten. Probably for the first time ever, a conference will have four teams in the top eight seeds, meaning there isn't a ton of wiggle room for how the top seeds are bracketed this season.

If Auburn and Florida are 1-seeds, they can't have Tennessee and Alabama as 2-seeds in their regions, on principle. That means if Michigan State and St. John's are the other 2-seeds, as projected, they'll be in the same region as Auburn and Florida.

Heading into conference tournaments, I wouldn't be surprised if the committee already locked in its top eight teams. St. John's is the only question, but dropping it to a 3-seed after winning the Big East title outright with only four overall losses would be surprising. 

The bracketing principles will also come into play with a possible 12 or 13 SEC teams in March Madness. Most importantly, there are stipulations depending on how many times a team plays another team. If you only play a conference foe once, you can meet as early as the second round. But, if you play a team more than once, you can't meet again until the Sweet 16 or possibly Elite 8. 

Comparing Teams with Different Schedules

Since the committee doesn't use its own metric (NET) exclusively, there will always be arguments about team placement. It's impossible to compare team's across conferences and sometimes comparing teams in conference is difficult since everyone doesn't have the same schedule.

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Gonzaga: NET 8, 23-8 overall, BracketMatrix projected 8-seed

The Zags are a top-10 team according to all three predictive metrics, but they rank as high as 46 in SOR. Without a great resume, they're projected to be around an 8-seed for March Madness, and that makes sense. Teams should be seeded based off how they play during the regular season and who they beat.

Memphis: NET 48, 26-5 overall, BracketMatrix projected 8-seed

Memphis has been a talking point all season because it picked up massive wins against Missouri, UConn, Michigan State and Clemson, but because it plays in the AAC, every one of its conference games could only hurt its outlook. The Tigers made it mostly unscathed outside of a couple losses, but they are still viewed in the 8-seed range.

Louisville: NET 23, 25-6 overall, BracketMatrix projected 6-seed

Louisville and Memphis are fairly similar in terms of resume metrics, but their predicted metrics are miles off. That's mostly because the Cardinals have had their metrics boosted in ACC play. Ranked 58 at KenPom entering January, they're up to 23 after beating up on conference opponents. 

In contrast, Memphis was 28th on Jan. 11 and has fallen to 49th despite going 13-2. If you don't consistently blow out mediocre to bad teams, your metrics will falter, unfortunately for Memphis.

Mississippi State: NET 34, 20-11 overall, BracketMatrix projected 8-seed

Instead of the prior three teams where one metric is wildly different than the other, the Bulldogs average 28th in resume metrics and 35th in predictive ones. After opening the season 14-1, they finished 6-10, though their KenPom ranking ohly fell from 15 to 32.

Is a team that lost five home games in conference play on the same level, or even better, than ones that lost six games total? These are the questions the committee will dive into leading up to Selection Sunday. There isn't an exact answer for a lot of the discussion, but the committee will try its best with the tools available.

Metrics prior to games on Monday, March 10

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