Committee Knows Its Role Before It Picks
The members gather year after year at the same time in the same room, shutting out the world like sequestered jurors in a murder trial.
Enslaved by tradition, the NCAA’s Division I men’s basketball committee sometimes resembles a secret fraternity, preserving its rituals and passing them along to newer members. The chairman always sits in the same chair in the same place in the same room at the Hyatt Hotel.
“I was shocked by the air of reverence the first time I went in there,” said one of the few non-members granted access to the inner sanctum where teams are selected and seeded with the caution of a diamond-cutter.
The 64-team bracket unveiled at 3:30 p.m. today by committee chairman Bob Frederick will be criticized by some, lauded by others. Regardless of whatever shortcomings anyone finds, it will be the product of a long, tiring weekend of high-pressure, intense work conducted in seclusion.
“There is a high degree of continuity and repetition in the process. I’d say ritual is a fair word to use,” said Big Ten commissioner Jim Delany, a former chairman. “They know their work will be pored over by media, fans and tournament participants.”
Nobody gets drafted to serve on the committee. The ambitious thread their way through the NCAA’s entangled politics for appointment to a four-year term on what’s become one of the most prestigious bodies in sports.
“They view themselves not so much as committee members, but as trustees,” Delany said. “And they know what an extraordinary effect their decisions can have on programs and on people.”
As usual, there will be plenty of points for the committee to ponder this weekend.
The bigger conferences - the Big Ten, ACC and Big East - will be looking for at least five and probably six bids. The smaller leagues - the Midwestern Collegiate, Southern and Trans America - hope their regular-season champions who fell in conference tournaments will be given a chance, as first-round winner Manhattan was last year.
The controversy will come, as it did last year, if power conference schools are passed over in favor of smaller-name schools with better records.
When the committee sets to work early Friday morning to select the 34 at-large teams and seed and bracket the field, they are surrounded by volumes of regional reports and computer-generated statistics.
Once they set up “the board,” a huge bracket in the middle of the room, only Hancock and Cawood can touch it. Not even the chairman messes with the board.
“It has the appearance of a very relaxed atmosphere, people sitting around eating a banana, with their shoes off,” Hancock said. “But there is a quiet intensity, almost a reverence for what they’re doing.”
Rest and dinner breaks are taken at appointed times. By tradition, the committee usually takes an ice cream break late Friday afternoon. They sometimes do not complete the bracket until 30 minutes or so before CBS-TV goes on the air to announce the pairings.
xxxx NCAA SELECTIONS ON TV ESPN’s NCAA men’s selection show starts at 3:27 p.m.; CBS’ will begin at 3:30 p.m. The women’s NCAA selections will be made at 4:30 p.m. on CBS.