Jones dismissal impacts U of L tourney profile
Welcome to The Resume, a new feature this season that we'll be doing every week as the NCAA tournament fast approaches. The goal here is to focus specifically on Louisville's tournament profile and assess where the Cardinals stand in terms of seeding in the tournament field.
Last season, I spent a lot of time on seeding and trying to project where Louisville -- and the rest of the teams in college hoops -- would fit into the tournament field. But we never had one place where U of L fans (and other curious hoops fans) could go to look just at Louisville's profile and where the Cardinals stand in the grand scheme of things.
So below, you'll find some insight into the selection and seeding process, and today, we'll also cover how the NCAA tournament selection committee will evaluate Louisville in the wake of Chris Jones' dismissal from the team.
WORKING LOUISVILLE'S RESUME
As CBS's bracket projection expert Jerry Palm pointed out on Monday (in addition to shooting down the whole idea that the NCAA tournament uses a snake-seeding structure*), the dismissal of Chris Jones from Louisville's basketball team will have a considerable impact on U of L's NCAA tournament status.
At this point in the season, Louisville's resume is obviously good enough to earn a tournament bid, much like Colorado's was last year before Spencer Dinwiddie tore his ACL. The sample size for Colorado without Dinwiddie was much larger -- the Buffs went 7-8 without him -- but the scenario is very similar.
The selection committee watches a ton of games and considers a team's "entire body of work," as the NCAA likes to say. That means that while Jones is no longer on the team, the wins over UNC, Indiana and Ohio State do mean something. Colorado had beaten Kansas, Harvard and Oregon with Dinwiddie. Those wins meant something, too.
But in both cases, the selection committee also had to consider how the teams played without their key guys. In Louisville's case, the committee will see that the Cards are 1-1 without Jones, who was the team's third-leading scorer, top assists and steals man and arguably its best defender. They'll see three more Louisville games in the regular season, and all three are good measuring-stick matchups. Naturally the Virginia and Notre Dame games pit Louisville against two teams likely headed to very favorable seeds in the NCAA tournament. And Saturday's game at FSU puts Louisville against a team that is 15-13 but has already been a thorn in the side of UNC, Duke and Virginia this season.
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Another thing to remember, and it's a big reason why conferences are moving their tournament championship games back to Saturday or earlier, is that you can't overvalue the conference tournament in terms of seeding. The selection committee starts its meetings and process on the Wednesday before Selection Sunday, so whatever a team has to its name on that Wednesday goes a long way toward its seeding. Yes, if Louisville were to, for example, beat UNC, Virignia and Duke on a neutral court in a three-day span, that would certainly help the Cards. And the committee would have a discussion about Louisville on Saturday night or Sunday in that hypothetical situation.
But again, we're not talking about jumping a team from a 4 to a 1 seed in that time span -- the field is mostly set by Sunday. And again, that ol' phrase that prompts eye-rolling pops up: "Entire body of work."
So, the next three games are pivotal in terms of Louisville's NCAA tournament possibilities. Obtaining a top-four seed, which means a team is considered among the top 16 in the field, is favorable, and Louisville is in position to do that as of now. But a U of L win against Notre Dame and/or Virginia -- and not losing at FSU -- would go a long way toward maintaining that position.
Related:U of L outlasts Georgia Tech in first post-Jones game
(* A quick explainer: Snake-seeding structure is how most of you probably conduct your fantasy football drafts: The person with the first pick in an eight-team league gets the 16th pick, second picker gets the 15th, etc. People seem to think that the NCAA tournament seeding process is done like that, with the overall No. 1 seed getting placed in the same region as the No. 8 overall team (and worst 2 seed), the second-best 1 seed getting the third-best 2 seed, etc. It doesn't work like that. As Palm explains, the bracketing and placement of teams in regions is heavily based on geography, with some effort given after the original bracketing to even out the regions.)
THE PRIMER
Here's the deal: The NCAA tournament selection committee has a group of specific metrics (and other factors) with which it evaluates teams. Let's break down specifically what the selection committee does have on its computer software during the process:
What the committee has on its selection process software: RPI, average opponent RPI, overall record, nonconference RPI, nonconference record, conference record, road/neutral record, strength of schedule, nonconference strength of schedule, opponents' strength of schedule, nonconference opponents' strength of schedule, record vs. RPI top 25, record vs. RPI top 50, record vs. RPI top 100, losses to RPI >150 teams, record vs. NCAA tournament teams, last 15 games.
Related:A rallying cry for U of L in Atlanta?
What committee members can use by choice to inform their thinking, but don't have on the NCAA software: Ken Pomeroy's efficiency ratings, Jeff Sagarin's ratings, AP/Coaches top 25 polls, ESPN's BPI, among other metrics.
This is why I constantly tell people that top 25 polls during the season simply don't matter. You can be No. 1 in the country in the AP and Coaches polls and get a 4 seed. That would be unlikely 99 times out of 100 -- or maybe 999 times out of 1,000 -- but it's possible.
LOUISVILLE'S NUMBERS
* - we use the NCAA's RPI numbers for this information.
Overall record: 22-6.
RPI: 17.
Strength of schedule: 34.
Conference record: 10-5.
Road/neutral record: 8-3.
Nonconference strength of schedule: 122.
Nonconference RPI: 26.
Nonconference record: 12-1.
Opponents' strength of schedule: 19.
Record vs. RPI top 25: 1-4.
Record vs. RPI top 50: 5-4.
Record vs. RPI top 100: 9-6.
Losses to RPI >150 teams: 0.
Record vs. NCAA tournament teams (using ESPN's Bracketology): 3-5.
Last 15 games: 10-5.