NABC Committee Looking Into NCAA Selection & Seeding Process

John Calipari was whining recently about how his Kentucky Wildcats were under-seeded in the 2016 NCAA Tournament, which presumably affected how far they made it. When everyone was done crying unfathomable amounts of tears over Coach Cal's sadness, they decided to organize a committee to look into the other committee that decides who makes the NCAAs and what their seed is.

A group of college men's basketball coaches will meet multiple times in the coming weeks to discuss the NCAA tournament selection, seeding and bracketing process.

Then, the group — an ad hoc committee formed by the National Association of Basketball Coaches (NABC) — will give feedback to the Division I men's basketball committee. The NABC announced the committee on Monday, and this will be the third ad hoc committee the organization has sponsored.

Wouldn't you know it, Calipari is on the committee. He's joined by folks like Gonzaga's Mark Few, NC State's Mark Gottfried, Georgetown's John Thompson III, and San Diego State's Steve Fisher.

Mike Waters posits that the Syracuse Orange could have played a role in why this committee suddently exists. The Orange were a controversial selection this past year and some felt their inclusion, not to mention their seeding, seemed curious. Syracuse then went on to make it all the way to the Final Four, for which they are so, so sorry about.

I would say that SU might come up as an example during discussions but is likely not the reason for these discussions. If anything, questions about the true value of winning your conference tournament, why some wins and losses mean more than others, and whether or not the current First Four structure makes the most sense are all topics that seem to need clarification.

It's actually not a terrible idea for a group of coaches to come together to help understand why the NCAA selection committee does what it does and suggest some ways to potentially improve the process. It worked the first two times an NABC committee like this convened, helping to change NBA Draft declaration rules as well as student-athlete time demands.