Kansas gets shipped to Vegas rather than KC region. The reason? An inconsistent mess
The case against Kansas — or the case for Houston, depending on your perspective — settled on about 60 words.
We’ll print all 60, but the context first: The Jayhawks landed in the West Region for the NCAA Tournament, which means a potential date in Las Vegas for the Sweet 16 (if they survive the initial two rounds) rather than the cozy confines of Kansas City. Houston swiped the second No. 1 seed behind Alabama and the T-Mobile Center in KC along with it.
And that 1v1 examination, per selection committee chairman Chris Reynolds during an interview with CBS, came down to a couple criteria.
The 60 words:
“Well, when you look at Houston — combined 15-2 in the Quad One and Two. Compared to Kansas — 21-7 in the Quad One or Two,” Reynolds said. “And Houston, they were competitive in all their games that they lost, except for today, and we understand today they were without their best player. And so for that reason, we kept Houston at number two.”
Maybe this is too into the weeds, but I didn’t plan to write about the bracket reveal. There’s often too much made of it. You don’t play all the teams in your region. Upsets happen. KU beat an 8-seed in the national championship game a year ago. It’s called madness for a reason. Fun talking point, though. I get that.
To be clear, KU’s difficult draw didn’t change my mind, even as it is a particularly tough draw. Five of the top-11 teams on KenPom all reside in the West region, which also gives KU the fourth-best odds — not to win the whole thing, but just to make it out of the region. UConn is ranked above KU in almost every predictive metric, and that’s a potential Sweet Sixteen matchup for a team that thought it might be enjoying the benefits of the tournament’s No. 1 overall seed.
So, yeah, it’s a tough draw. That’s not why I’m writing.
Why then? The inconsistency in the messaging. It’s the expiration date on the system that allows for the inconsistency in the first place.
I don’t understand how members of this committee arrived at their seeding. Do you? Do they?
This is an old problem, willfully ignoring new solutions, but KU just so happens to be placed in the center of it — the same KU team that, mind you, was the beneficiary of its draw a year ago. The committee doesn’t have it out for KU. You could write this column almost every year. Just so happens this year it’s about Kansas.
What are the committee’s priorities?
Well, Reynolds outlined two primary reasons Houston drew the Midwest and shipped KU to Sin City.
And before we get into each, let’s point out that there are better, uniform ways to do this. My colleague Jesse Newell has longed preferred “wins above bubble,” which isn’t as complicated as it sounds, but that’s not really the point — the point is it’s consistent.
Selection Sunday was not.
Again.
The first criteria Reynolds used compared the records of KU and Houston against Quad One and Quad Two teams. If the two quads are going to be combined in the debate room, then why separate them in the first place? Oh, because they are different, and the initial one seems to have favored the team they didn’t pick.
Houston was 7-2 against Quad One teams, the statistic we were led to believe would have significant sway in that room. Kansas was 17-7 against them. Ten more wins against the best competition in the country. You could point out that Houston had a better winning percentage, though had 128th-ranked Temple been a Quad One loss rather than a Quad Three loss, Houston would be 7-3 and therefore have a worse winning percentage.
KU did not lose to anyone outside of the initial quad. Should the Cougars benefit from the fact one of their losses was a really bad loss? Outliers are excluded?
But mostly, it certainly makes you wonder how many other resumes were meshed together — Quad One and Quad Two — rather than their original separation.
Reynolds’ second point provides a likely answer — not many. Because this is where it really gets inconsistent.
Reynolds referenced that Houston’s losses were competitive — well, except for that one Sunday. Ignore that one. But the other two? They were close games. (Geez, I would hope the loss to Temple was close, considering it was a loss far worse than any on KU’s sheet. Temple is 128 in the RPI, while KU didn’t lose to anyone outside the top 63.)
But to the careful listener and careful follower of college hoops, Reynolds seems to be referencing predictive metrics without outright saying so. Those value margin of victory and defeat. If that’s what the committee is using, they picked the right team. The possession metrics love Houston. KenPom has Houston as the top team in the country. There is little question the Cougars would be favored against Kansas if they met on a neutral court.
I’m a fan of those stats. One problem, though: Houston is also ranked ahead of Alabama in those same metrics. If margin of losses is indeed a factor, well, Alabama lost games by 24 points (Oklahoma), 15 (Connecticut), 10 (Gonzaga), nine (Tennessee) and six (Texas A&M). Why didn’t that matter in a discussion of Alabama or Houston for the No. 1 overall seed? Houston beats Alabama in margin of victory/defeat, and oh by the way, Houston had the better Quad One and Two record combined.
Oops.
By the way, you know what other teams those metrics, such as KenPom and T-Rank, like? Utah State, the 10th seed that will face seventh-seeded Missouri. Utah State rates considerably better than any other 10 seed, a trickle-down effect that also makes things more difficult for Mizzou. Oh, and Florida Atlantic, which settled for a No. 9 seed, rates ahead of Virginia, which earned a four-seed, in almost every predictive metric.
Oops again.
Are we using margin of victory and defeat or not? Are we using Quad One and Quad Two records combined or not?
They were referenced on national TV to determine one battle while it appears the committee ignored them in most other decisions. Which leaves the optics that these decisions are made — someway, somehow — and the reasoning follows, rather than vice versa.
We can all pick selective data points in whichever close selection battle exists. There are enough of them at our fingertips. Use the ones you like; to hell with the rest.
In this case, some favor Houston, some favor Kansas. I’d argue the overall resume favors KU, while Houston is the actual better team, and the entrance into the NCAA Tournament should be more about what you’ve accomplished than what you’re capable of accomplishing. (Which is why injured players and the potential of a head coach’s availability should have a literal 0.0 weight on the entire scale.)
There are smart people who disagree with that last point — who point out that Houston is the better team, and therefore it gets the better seed.
Fine. The important thing is knowing which the committee favors. We all find out together, on Selection Sunday. And on a day that should provide clarity to that question, we’re left more confused than we were in the hours preceding it.
How did they get here?
Well, it depends.
This story was originally published March 12, 2023 at 9:10 PM.