NCAA Bracket 2012: Tournament Selection Committee Changes

Every year, the selection committee is criticized for snubbing teams that should have made the NCAA Tournament.

There will always be disagreements about who should have made the Field of 68. The 69th and 70th teams will always feel like they got snubbed.

There's no way to change that.

The biggest problem is how the selection committee chooses the 37 at-large teams. The committee overemphasizes certain criteria that should not determine whether or not a team should have the right to play for a national championship.

Here are a few things the committee should stop focusing on when choosing the NCAA Tournament teams:

Non-Conference Strength of Schedule

It's very important for teams to play tough games outside of their conference.

I'm not disputing that.

The problem comes when the committee puts a team in the field because they played a tough non-conference schedule, even if they didn't win any hard games. It shouldn't matter that a team played a good non-conference schedule if they didn't win any of them.

Understandably, the committee wants to get mid-majors to play some of the bigger names in college basketball, but rewarding teams that get blown out is not the way to do it.

Last 10 Games

For some reason, how a team plays at the end of their season is given a lot of consideration when choosing at-large bids.

A team's record in the last 10 games is looked at more closely than its record in the first 10 games.

What is the reason for this? Why is it better to win a game in February than November?

As the old saying goes, a win is a win. A team shouldn't get more credit for winning games late in the season. Each victory counts the same in the standings.

In the NBA, a team isn't kept out of the playoffs because it played poorly at the end of the year. The only thing that should matter is how many wins a team has, not in what month they occurred.

Eye Test

Analysts always talk about the eye test when deciding what teams should make it to the big dance. This refers to watching a team play, and deciding if they look like a team good enough to compete in the Tournament, discounting its record on the season.

This should have no bearing on whether or a not a team is worthy enough to make the tournament.

College basketball has been praised for having a playoff system and being different from NCAA football. The eye test eliminates the objectivity of the playoff system.

It shouldn't be about how a team looks when they take the court, or how talented they are. The way a team fares against its competition should determine its postseason fate.

The beauty of college basketball is that the champion is determined by results, and not the opinion of people who watch the game.