For two hours on Sunday, CBS will unveil the 68 teams destined for March Madness. There will be jubilation for the teams that hear their names called and heartbreak for those who aren’t extended an invite.
Who is on the NCAA tournament selection committee for college basketball?
These are the elusive members who control March.
Bill Streicher-USA TODAY Sports
But who is in charge of selecting and seeding those 68?
Meet the NCAA selection committees, or the ones who determine team ranks each week and orchestrate all of March’s madness.
WHO ARE THEY?
Men’s Basketball
Chair: Mark Hollis, director of athletics, Michigan State University
- Mitch S. Barnhart, director of athletics, University of Kentucky
- Janet Cone, director of athletics, University of North Carolina at Asheville
- Tom Holmoe, director of athletics, Brigham Young University
- Paul Krebs, vice president and director of athletics, University of New Mexico
- Bernard Muir, director of athletics, Stanford University
- Bruce Rasmussen, director of athletics, Creighton University
- Peter Roby, director of athletics, Northeastern University
- Jim Schaus, director of athletics, Ohio University
- Kevin White, director of athletics, Duke University
Women’s Basketball
Chair: Terry Gawlik, senior associate athletics director, University of Wisconsin Madison
- Rhonda Bennett, senior associate athletics director/SWA, University of Nevada
- Jill Bodensteiner, senior associate athletics director, University of Notre Dame
- DeJuena Chizer, senior associate athletics director/SWA, University of Houston
- Leslie Claybrook, assistant commissioner, Southeastern Conference
- Mary Ellen Gillespie, athletics director, University of Wisconsin, Green Bay
- Tamica Smith Jones, director of athletics, University of California, Riverside
- Teresa Phillips, director of athletics, Tennessee State University
- Deborah Richardson, senior associate commissioner, Atlantic 10 Conference
- Diane C. Turnham, senior associate athletics director, Middle Tennessee State University
The committees are made up of 10 athletic directors and conference commissioners who each serve five-year terms on the committee and are nominated by their conference. Women’s and men’s Division I each have separate committees, and generally the women’s committee is made up of all women while the men’s committee is all men.
There have been some exceptions: Janet Cone, UT-San Antonio athletic director Lynn Hickey, and UNC-Charlotte athletic director Judy Rose have served on the men’s committee. Metro Athletic Atlantic Conference Commissioner Richard Ensor also served on the women’s committee.
WHAT DO THEY DO?
Besides choose the 32 teams outside of conference winners who get to compete in March Madness and seeding and bracketing the teams, the committees meet throughout the year to discuss the conference and pick officials and tournament sites.
All committee members except for the chair are each assigned seven conferences to monitor. All of the 32 NCAA Division I conferences get two monitors, one primary and one secondary, from the selection committee.
This year was actually the first year the men’s committee released its top 16 seeds before Selection Sunday; they were announced in early February. Starting the Tuesday before Selection Sunday, though, the committee convenes in New York to vote and debate over the teams to get down to a final bracket of 68 by the week’s end.
For women’s basketball, the committee meets in June to determine championship policies and assign conferences. The members then meet later in January, when they craft a list of teams they want to watch more closely as the season is heading to a close. The women’s committee only starts bracketing the Friday before Selection Monday, though.
BUT HOW IS THIS FAIR?
Clearly not every college is represented in this lineup of 10. However, committee members actually can’t be in the room when their team or teams from their conferences are being discussed. Conference and school representatives are also barred from voting for their own teams.
The committee also uses some fancy metrics and numbers from the likes of Ken Pomeroy and Jeff Sagarin to better determine teams. After a request from coaches to use more data, committee members have started meeting with number crunchers to look at incorporating more advanced metrics into bracketing.
Now that selection day is coming up and the bubble is as messy as ever, at least we all have a little better idea of who calls the shots (and who we can get mad at). After all, this is March.
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