Bubble teams generate the most conversation around March Madness, and the selection committee has made an important tweak to deciding which teams make the NCAA tournament.
According to Andy Katz of NCAA.com, the committee will now put a larger emphasis on road and neutral-site victories in the selection process.
In the past, the panel would use top 50, 51-100, 101-200 and 201-plus as the dividing categories when determining quality wins and bad losses.
However, the separation placed no extra value on winning a challenging road game. For example, a victory against the 60th-rated team on the road may be similarly impressive to defending home court opposite the No. 40 squad. That’s going to change things.
Katz notes the committee is shifting to a four-quadrant system. The previous separation now only applies to neutral-site games, while a victory against teams ranked 1-75 counts the same as home win over 1-30.
The most important impact is this change boosts non-power-conference schools. The less-recognized programs typically travel to more games than they host during the conference slate. Now, they’re rewarded for top-135 wins, not just top-100.
Additionally, power-conference teams may be more willing to schedule road games against respected mid-major competition.
Overall, this is an excellent decision by the NCAA. It levels the playing field for mid-major schools that made a legitimate effort to play a challenging schedule, and it puts a larger burden on power-conference teams to avoid bad losses at home.