THE #3 SEEDS, INCLUDING: DUKE, WASHINGTON, TEXAS TECH, OR WISCONSIN?

In my article on the #2 seeds, my computer had Arkansas, Oklahoma State, and Kansas competing for the last #2 seed, but they didn't get it.  That would put them in line for #3 seeds, and in fact the Committee gave them #3 seeds.

Among the three of them, Arkansas met 3 standards for "yes" #3 seed and 0 "no" standards.  Kansas and Oklahoma State each met 0 "yes" and 0 "no" standards.  This suggested Arkansas should get the top #3 seed and left undefined where to put Kansas and Oklahoma State.  If the Committee's placement of the three teams in the bracket is an indication of how the Committee ranked them, they likewise saw Arkansas as the top #3 seed (#9 seed overall).  Next came Oklahoma State (#10) and then Kansas (#11).  It's worth noting that Arkansas' Top 50 Results Score was 17,641, Oklahoma State's was 3,062, and Kansas' was 2,410, which matched their bracket placement order.

This left the Committee needing to pick the last #3 seed.  According to my computer, the candidates were Duke, Washington, Texas Tech, and Brown, all of whom met 0 "yes" standards for a #3 seed and 0 "no" standards.  The Committee, however, picked Wisconsin, which met 0 "yes" standards and 1 "no."

In my first article on the Committee's bracket decisions, I discussed Brown and the Ivy League, so I won't cover that here.

Wisconsin

As stated, Wisconsin met no "yes" #3 seed standards and 1 "no."  Here is the "no" standard it met:

Conference Standing and Conference RPI (Standard #71)

The "no" #3 seed score for this standard is <=3.1142.

In figuring a team's conference standing, I consider both its regular season standing and its conference tournament finishing position (as the Committee is required to do for at large selections).  In my system, for the conference tournament, the champion finishes in the #1 position, the runner-up in #2, the losing semi-finalists in #3.5 (average of #3 and #4), the quarter-finalists in the #6.5 position (average of #5 through #8), and so on.  I then average the team's regular season standing and its conference tournament position to get its Conference Standing.  Wisconsin was #1 in the Big Ten regular season standings, but exited the conference tournament in the quarter-finals giving it a #6.5 position.  The average of these two positions is #3.75, so in my system that's its Conference Standing.

The Big Ten's Conference RPI was 0.5566.  Combining this with Wisconsin's #3.75 Conference Standing gave it a score for this standard of 3.1053.  This meant it would not get a #3 seed according to the Committee's pattern.  Since Wisconsin did get a #3 seed, I will need to change the "no" #3 seed score for this standard.  When I make the change, there will be 15 teams, of the 720 Top 60 teams over the last 12 years, that previously were in the "no" #3 seed category but that now will not be in that category.  This is a small change.

General Comments

There is no obvious reason, in the data, for the Committee to give Wisconsin the last #3 seed.  The other teams vieing for the seed all had better Top 50 results -- Duke with a score of 28,132, Washington with 4,400, and Texas Tech with 3,824, whereas Wisconsin had only 1,047.

On the other hand, it is possible that the Committee gave little weight to the Big Ten's Conference RPI, which could have made Wisconsin a contender for a #3 seed.  The Committee's doing this would have been consistent both with its not giving Brown a seed (or Yale, Harvard, or Columbia at large selections) and with its giving BYU the last #2 seed -- all reflecting that the Committee was doubtful about the reliability of Conference RPI's and Conference Ranks at least in this area of the conference ratings and rankings.

And, going even further, it is possible that the Committee believed the Big Ten should get at least one position among the top 12 seeds.  If the Committee felt that the Ivy League really was a weaker conference than the Big Ten or the West Coast Conference, this would have made the Big Ten the #5 conference and the West Coast the #6.  All of the better ranked conferences plus the West Coast already had seeds among the top 12 -- the ACC and Pac 12 with 3 each, the SEC and Big 12 with 2 each, and the WCC with 1.  If this is how the Committee looked at it, it could have made sense to them give the Big Ten the last #3 seed, settling on Wisconsin as the best Big Ten candidate.  This is the best explanation I can see for the Committee's decision.