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Division I Men’s Basketball Committee redefines quality win

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The NCAA logo is at center court as work continues at The Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh, Wednesday, March 18, 2015, for the NCAA college basketball second and third round games. Second round games start on Thursday. (AP Photo/Keith Srakocic)

AP

There’s a change coming to the way that the NCAA will evaluate what is and what is not a good win in regards to the NCAA tournament selection committee this season.

On Thursday morning, the NCAA sent out a release from the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Committee announcing that they will be placing a “greater emphasis on winning road games” by changing the way that the team sheets used by the selection committee are organized.

Here are the specifics:

For the past several years, team sheets have divided results into four columns: results against the top 50 teams in the NCAA’s Rating Percentage Index; 51-100; 101-200; and any team ranked 201 or lower. Effective with the 2017-18 season, team sheets will place greater emphasis on where the games are played rather than the ranking of each opponent.

There still will be four separate columns, with the first column consisting of home games against teams ranked 1-30, neutral-site games against teams ranked in the top 50 and road games against opponents ranked in the top 75. The second column will include home games against teams ranked 31-75, neutral-site games versus teams ranked 51-100 and road games against teams ranked 76-135.


To translate, what this essentially does is that a top 30 win at home is now equivalent to a top 75 road win, which is justified given how difficult it is to win on the road. This should also create an incentive for top teams to play true road games in non-conference play.

Just as important is the fact that the NCAA will begin to phase out the RPI beginning in 2018-19.

“The group also committed to continue studying various metrics the committee has at its disposal to evaluate teams, with the likelihood of a new metric being in place for the 2018-19 season,” the release stated.