Despite their lofty computer rankings, the Arizona Wildcats were essentially told Saturday by the NCAA that they still have plenty of work to do.
The NCAA tournament selection committee did not give the Wildcats one of the top 16 seeds during its early bracket reveal Saturday, despite the fact that Arizona is ranked No. 8 overall in the NCAA's own NET ratings, as well as No. 10 in Torvik, No. 11 in Kenpom, and 17 in Sagarin.
Oregon was the only Pac-12 team receiving a 1-4 seed in Saturday, assigned a No. 4 seed in the West as the No. 14 seed overall. Final selections will be made on March 15; the Pac-12 Tournament will be held March 11-14.
Kentucky athletic director Mitch Barnhart, the vice chair of this season’s NCAA tournament selection committee, said Colorado and Arizona both were in the discussion for top four seeds but that Iowa, Kentucky and LSU were “probably closer to the four line.”
That might indicate the Wildcats would have received a No. 6 seed if the selections were finalized before Saturday’s games, which is in line with the Wildcats’ No. 23 ranking in the human-powered AP Top 25 poll and exactly where CBS bracket analyst Jerry Palm put them Saturday.
The NET is primarily used as a sorting tool, to be able to place games into quadrants based on an opponent's NET ranking, not as a deciding factor for seeding. But the Wildcats have a particularly wide discrepancy between their No. 8 NET rating and how the committee judged them.
Barnhart said UA’s big margins in many victories and small margins of losses to highly ranked teams did “feed into the metrics,” which might explain the Wildcats' high NET rating, but it was also clear they didn’t have enough quality wins to qualify for a 1-4 seed or enough success away from McKale Center.
“There are many other tools we use to evaluate,” Barnhart said. “Their road record is 2-4, so that is a factor. They would like to probably win some more games on the road and that would be a help to them.”
The Wildcats lost to top 16 NET teams Baylor, Gonzaga and Oregon all by five points or less but they have only beaten one Top 50 NET team (No. 18 Colorado) and are 2-4 in top-tier “Quadrant 1” games – beating Colorado at home and Washington (55) on the road, while losing Q1 opportunities against Baylor (2), Gonzaga (3), Oregon (19) and ASU (53).
Quadrant 1 games are defined as those at home against NET teams 1-30, at neutral sites against 1-50 and on the road against 1-75.
“The NET is just one of many tools we use to evaluate our teams -- you've got (other) metrics and you’ve got head-to-head competitions,” Barnhart said when asked about UA's situation during a conference call after Saturday’s bracket reveal. “We take all of those things into consideration and non-conference performances are important to what we're trying to get done. So there's a lot of pieces to the puzzle.
“(Arizona is) beginning to trend the right way and do some really nice things with their team. Had a chance to watch them Thursday night in their game against USC and clearly it's a very competitive race in the Pac-12. With 1,500 games left to play in the season and tournaments to play, they've certainly got room to make their impact on the brackets.”
Teams seeded 1-4 are protected from having to face lower-seeded teams located closer to their assigned tournament sites and usually receive preferential locations, especially during the first weekend.
