NCAA Selection Chairman on SEC, Cards, and UNC

Louisville coach Pat Kelsey and his team were not happy being a No. 8 even though they are playing in Rupp Arena. (Vicky Graff Photo)

Bubba Cunningham, chairman of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Committee and the Director of Athletics at North Carolina, shared some insights late Sunday night after the NCAA tourney field was announced.

He touched on a variety of subjects including the SEC’s strength, Louisville’s No. 8 seed, and how North Carolina got in with so many Quad I losses

Q. The SEC had 14 teams, a record to make March Madness. Normally they’re known as a football conference, but lately, basketball has kind of been catching up in that respect. What went into the thought process behind those two decisions?

BUBBA CUNNINGHAM: Yeah, you’re right. The SEC has really come on strong this year, this year in particular. They won 88 percent of their non-conference games. They were hard to play against. They beat almost every league they played against.

It was unique. It may not be unique, but it’s certainly something that we’re taking a look at. The conferences are expanding. The bigger conferences are a bigger challenge for us now, as well. So hats off to the SEC for having such an outstanding year.

Q. Bubba, with Texas, can you sort of take us through the Texas of how they ultimately got in? 19-15, seven Quad 1 wins. Just curious how that process went along to actually get Texas into the field.

BUBBA CUNNINGHAM: Well, you know, it’s incredible when you get down toward the end. As we mentioned previously, San Diego State, Texas, Xavier, North Carolina, all of us got in right at the very, very end, and the committee looks at 12 different metrics, including this year the Torvik and the WAB, and I can’t speak for everyone on the committee, but I do think that the seven wins in Quad 1 was significant, and I think that’s probably one of the things that moved them in. They played in the hardest conference in the country.
That conference has just won 88 percent of their non-conference games, and they didn’t have a single loss in Quad 3 or Quad 4. They had an outstanding year, and their competition was really mostly in their conference.

Q. The non-conference strength of schedule has sort of been a sticking point. How much of that was a factor, and how did you guys ultimately overlook what was a pretty bad strength of schedule non-conference?

BUBBA CUNNINGHAM: Yeah, we had to look at the non-conference strength of schedule but we also looked at the conference. When you look at the overall strength of schedule for the entire year, we talk about a full body of work. Quite frankly, teams that don’t schedule hard in the non-conference have to rely on an incredible conference season with great teams within their league, and this year for Texas it worked out.

Q. I wanted to get your thoughts on Louisville receiving a No. 8 seed. The second-place team in the ACC has only been lower than a 4 seed one time since 2000 and you’re familiar with that because it was the 2022 North Carolina team that was an 8 seed, finishing tied for second. I just wanted to get you to elaborate on how that came about.

BUBBA CUNNINGHAM: Yeah, I think Louisville had a great year, but I do think when you take a look at our league, we ended up getting four teams into the tournament this year, obviously Duke being the leader of teams out of the ACC, Clemson. Clemson beating Duke certainly raised their profile.

As the committee looked at and put Louisville into the field and then we scrubbed them up and down the board, that’s where the committee felt that they should be ranked this year, and then obviously we came in at the very end — in fact, we wouldn’t have been in had Memphis lost in the American conference championship.

Q. I wanted to follow up on Louisville. I was wondering how much did their early season non-conference losses to Tennessee, to Ole Miss that were by big margins, how much that may have factored into their eventual seeding today?

BUBBA CUNNINGHAM: Yeah, every game matters, and I do think those losses were tough losses for them, but they had a great year.

Louisville is an outstanding team, and hats off to what they’ve been able to do, Pat Kelsey coming in there and turning that thing around. They had an outstanding year. Only one loss in Quad 2.

But again, as I just mentioned just about five minutes ago, the quality of this field is really good, and when you’re scrubbing teams up and down and trying to compare them, every last kind of blemish on your record might move you down a notch or a big win may move you up. I look forward to watching them in the tournament. I think they could have a great tournament.

Q. Bubba, obviously you have to be out of the room when any North Carolina discussion takes place throughout this process, but could you speak to as the committee chair, the responsibility that you took on throughout the week and the care that you put into making sure that broader discussions did not impact potentially the way that your team or any other team was viewed as you talk about the areas that will matter to this committee, the different analytics that you’re looking at, trying to make sure that you did not have an indirect influence into that process?

BUBBA CUNNINGHAM: Yeah, great question. You know, any of us that have to chair the committee, and Keith will chair the committee next year, you come in with that knowledge. We’ve been doing this — I’ve been on the committee now for five years. I’ve watched four others lead the committee. We meet throughout the year.
I think it’s been a great learning experience. You do have an opinion. You do have your own thoughts and your own ideas. But the responsibility of the chair is to have the committee work together to be fair, to find the best 37 to put in the field, and allow everyone to speak their mind, give their point of view, evaluate teams as they say.
We also assign a conference monitor to each of the conferences that talk on behalf of those leagues, and I think it’s a really good system. I think our principles that the NCAA has adopted over time somewhat ensure that equity.

It’s been a great process, and we follow those procedures that have been prescribed and have been used for a number of years.