The selection process for college basketball's NCAA Division I Men's and Women's Basketball Tournaments determine which teams (68 men's and 68 women's) will enter the tournaments (the centerpieces of the basketball championship known as "March Madness") and their seedings and matchups in the knockout bracket. Currently, thirty-one (31) teams gain automatic entry through winning their conference's championship. The remaining teams (37 men's, 37 women's) rely on the selection committee to award them an at-large bid in the tournament. The selection process primarily takes place on Selection Sunday and the days leading up to it. Selection Sunday is also when the men's brackets and seeds are released to the public. Beginning in 2022, the women's championship brackets and seeds are also announced on Sunday. Prior to the expansion of the bracket from 64 to 68 teams, the women's championship brackets and seeds were announced one day later, on Selection Monday.
The selection committees The twelve-member basketball selection committee is made up of athletic directors and conference commissioners throughout Division I men's and women's athletics with separate committees for the men's and women's tournaments. The committees consist of one member selected from each of the five autonomy conferences and three members selected from the seven highest-ranked nonautonomy conferences based on basketball success. The remaining four members are selected from the 20 other conferences. All appointments are for five years. Historically the men's selection committee consisted of all men, and the women's selection committee consisted of all women. However, recently women have been serving on the men's committee (including Judy Rose, Lynn Hickey, Janet Cone, and current member Bernadette McGlade), and men have been serving on the women's committee (including Richard Ensor and current member Jeff Konya). The tournament selection is only part of the committee members' duties; the panels meet year-round (in-person or through conference calls) to discuss the tournament and its administration, evaluate teams, assign tournament game officials, and determine future tournament sites.
To avoid potential conflicts of interest, committee members must leave the room when their own school is being discussed (or schools in the case of the conference commissioners). The member may be invited to answer factual questions regarding their team or teams (e.g., status of player injuries). Athletic directors may be present when other schools from their conference are discussed, but may only speak if asked.
Current men's committee members
Name School/Conference Position Keith Gill฿ Sun Belt Conference Commissioner Martin Newton฿ Samford Athletic Director Lee Reed Georgetown Athletic Director Arthur Johnson Temple Athletic Director John Wildhack Syracuse Athletic Director Chad Weiberg Oklahoma State Athletic Director Stu Jackson West Coast Conference Commissioner Mark Coyle Minnesota Athletic Director Tom Wistrcill Big Sky Conference Commissioner Greg Byrne Alabama Athletic Director Irma Garcia Manhattan Athletic Director Zack Lassiter Abilene Christian Athletic Director
₳current chairman ฿current vice-chairman
Current women's committee members Name School/Conference Position Nina King ₳ Duke Vice President and Director of Athletics Beth Goetz ฿ Iowa Athletic Director Deneé Barracato Northwestern Deputy Director of Athletics Amanda Braun Milwaukee Athletic Director Greg Burke Northwestern State Athletic Director Kurt McGuffin UT Martin Athletic Director Lisa Peterson Oregon Deputy Director of Athletics Derita Ratcliffe Dawkins Arkansas Deputy Director of Athletics Janice Ruggiero New Mexico Deputy Director of Athletics and Senior Woman Administrator Jill Shields Kansas State Deputy Athletics Director Lynn Tighe Villanova Senior Associate Athletics Director and Senior Woman Administrator
₳current chairman ฿current vice-chairman
Selecting the field The selection committee must first decide which teams will compete in the tournament. As of the 2024–25 season, thirty-one teams receive automatic bids to the tournament by winning their conference tournament.
The selection committee only selects the teams (37 for men and women) who receive at-large bids. Though each conference receives only one automatic bid, the selection committee may select any number of at-large teams from each conference. The at-large teams generally come from college basketball's top conferences, including the ACC, Big 12, Big East, Big Ten, SEC and to a lesser extent, the American, A-10, Mountain West and WCC. Many of these at-large teams, however, are "on the bubble", meaning that their chances of gaining a tournament berth are borderline, and they will not know if they have gained entry until the Selection Sunday bracket announcements.
Through the 2018 men's tournament and 2019 women's tournament, the RPI rating was often considered a factor in selecting and seeding the final few teams in the tournament field. However, the NCAA selection committee in 2015 said the RPI was only utilized for grouping the teams into groups such as top 50 and top 100 teams, to value the wins and losses, and not as a factor for selection. Additionally, the committee officially considers predictive computer rankings, such as ESPN's BPI, Sagarin, and Pomeroy Ratings, which use additional factors considered by the committee, such as injured players in the case of the BPI. Additionally, committee members consider how teams do on the road and at neutral courts, strength of conference and schedule, non-conference strength of schedule, record against other selected tournament teams, and other extenuating factors. Finally, the "eye test" is often quoted by pundits as something the committee uses, however ncaa.org's sparse description of the selection process doesn't officially mention the "eye test". For instance, in 2016 Oklahoma athletic director Joe Castiglione, the NCAA selection committee's chair, said that the stark contrast in Syracuse's performance in 2015–2016 with Jim Boeheim present versus absent was considered the same as missing a key player during the slump.
A number of teams are assured an at-large berth no matter their performance in their conference tournament. Most teams in the Top 25 in the national polls or RPI are essentially guaranteed at-large berths even if they do not win their respective conference tournaments. However, teams that have been ranked heading into Selection Sunday but didn't win a weaker conference's tournament have been essentially penalized (or "snubbed") by the selection committee despite computer rankings or public opinion. One example was Utah State in 2004, when Utah State completed the regular season with a record of 25–2 but was snubbed after losing in their conference tournament, even though they were ranked in the polls. The factors in their snub were the soft non-conference schedule which included Mountain West Conference foes BYU (close home win) and Utah (road loss) as well as the road loss to Pacific on February 14, 2004. Pacific went on to earn the Big West Conference's automatic berth and advanced to the 2nd round of the 2004 tournament.
The committee also selects four additional teams, the "First Four Out", who do not qualify for the tournament. Since 2015, the NCAA has placed the "First Four Out" from the men's field as the top seeds in the National Invitation Tournament. The NCAA carried this policy over to the inaugural Women's Basketball Invitation Tournament in 2024.
During the 2018 offseason, the NCAA announced that the RPI would no longer be used in the selection process for the Division I men's tournament. The RPI has been replaced by the NCAA Evaluation Tool (NET), a new metric that includes the following input data: Game results Strength of schedule Location (home, away, or neutral site) Scoring margin — Teams receive no added credit for victory margins above 10 points. Additionally, overtime games will be assigned a scoring margin of 1 point, regardless of the actual score. Net offensive and defensive efficiency All games will be evaluated equally; there is no bonus or penalty for when a game is played within the season. Quality of wins and losses — The NCAA continues to use its "quadrant" system, introduced for the 2018 tournament selection process, to classify individual wins and losses. Quadrants are classified as follows, based on the location of the game with respect to the team under consideration and the ranking of its opponent in the NET as follows:
QuadrantHomeNeutral siteAway 1 1–30 1–50 1–75 2 31–75 51–100 76–135 3 76–160 101–200 136–240 4 161–353 201–353 241–353
The NET was initially adopted only for men's basketball. Starting with the 2020–21 season, the NCAA Division I women's basketball tournament also began using the NET. The women's NET uses input data exclusively from the women's game, but otherwise operates identically to the men's version. All other sports that use selection committees to determine NCAA tournament entries, continue to use their own versions of the RPI, as the Division I women's basketball tournament had done prior to 2020–2021.
Predictions and speculation
While the selection committee assembles to do the official work, many predictions are made by various people and organizations. Speculations and buzz can come from anywhere from random college basketball fans to senior bracketologists and experts on the selection process and the seedings, such as ESPN's Joe Lunardi. Other well-known experts in this field include Ken Pomeroy of kenpom.com, Jerry Palm of CBSSports.com, Gary Parrish of CBSSports.com, and Dean Oliver of ESPN's BPI. The ESPN's BPI also considers injured key players, which is also considered by the NCAA selection committee.
Bracketology is conducted extensively for the men's tournament, although a few bracketologists also make projected brackets for the women's tournament, the most prominent being Charlie Creme's weekly projections on ESPN.com.
Seeding The selection committee's work to seed the teams is just as vital as their work to select the at-large teams. While the selection process starts before the seeding process, the two often overlap. Some conference tournaments do not finish until Selection Sunday itself, and there is only one hour between the end of the last game (usually the Big Ten tournament championship game) and when the brackets are officially unveiled, so the committee cannot wait until after all the games are played to start determining the seeds. While nothing is set in stone until after all the games are played and the brackets are established, the committee may have a good idea of where a team is and where they could rise or fall to depending on their showing in the later stages of their conference tournament.
Though the brackets only feature the seed numbers 1-16 in each region, the committee first assembles a overall seed ranking of selected team from 1 through 68, formatted as an "S-curve". The selection committee uses a number of factors to rank teams for the S-curve, including record, strength of schedule, and the NET in the Division I men's tournament and the RPI in all other championship tournaments. Relative subjective comparison of individual teams close on the S-Curve are also considered.
The "S-curve" table in the guidelines displays four teams to a row, alternating left-to-right and right-to left. In theory, the teams 1-4 on the seed list will all be #1 seeds in their regions (the #1 "seed line"), 5-8 will be #2 seeds in their regions (the #2 seed line), and so on; however, bracketing rules allow minor deviation from this when necessary to meet other bracketing requirements. (Also, the teams in the "first four" teams that share a seed number place lower table rows out of sync with seed numbering.)