By Doc Kennedy
The NCAA tournament field was announced Sunday afternoon, and the North Carolina Tar Heels snuck in the back door, as UNC was the last team included. The content gods delivered, and, as “The OG Podcast” host Joe Ovies noted, the discussion regarding Carolina’s selection was immediately lively.
A number of commentators and talking heads took to the airwaves and keyboards to decry the inclusion of the Tar Heels, mainly based on their dismal 1–12 record against Quad 1 teams in the NET.
However, seven of UNC’s 12 Q1 losses are against teams that are No. 1 or No. 2 seeds in the NCAA tournament. To those commentators, UNC’s 1–12 record against Quad 1 opponents was much more egregious than Xavier’s 1–9 record in Q1, though the Musketeers did have one more win over the field than Carolina.
The Selection Committee listed the last four teams in as Texas, Xavier, San Diego State and UNC, while the first four out were West Virginia, Indiana, Ohio State and Boise State. Most prognosticators considered West Virginia a tournament lock and not even in the bubble conversation, while the other seven teams had been living the bubble life for the past few weeks. The good news for those teams headed into Sunday was the relative absence of bid stealers, meaning the at-large door was left pretty wide open.
What allowed UNC to slip in that door while the bubble burst for the Mountaineers, Hoosiers, Buckeyes and Broncos? Looking beyond the blazing neon sign that was Carolina’s Quad 1 record, the metrics actually loved the Tar Heels.
The NCAA Selection Committee evaluated teams on a number of metrics, both predictive and results-based, along with the NET. The predictive rankings included Torvik, BPI, and KenPom, while the resume measures included KPI, strength of record and a new addition this year, WAB, or wins above the bubble.
WAB is defined as how much better you are than a team above the cut line. In mapping out these seven metrics of the eight bubble teams, UNC was first in four, and second in two more. The Tar Heels were easily the best team in combined predictive measures and in the top four in combined results measures.
Bubble analysis
| Metric | Texas | Xavier | SDSU | UNC | West Virginia | Indiana | Ohio State | Boise State |
| Record | 19–15 | 21–11 | 21–9 | 22–13 | 19–13 | 19–13 | 17–15 | 24–10 |
| Last 10* | 4–6 | 8–2 | 6–4 | 8–2 | 5–5 | 5–5 | 4–6 | 7-3 |
| NET | 39 | 45 | 52 | 36 | 51 | 54 | 41 | 44 |
| BPI | 33 | 39 | 54 | 25 | 51 | 52 | 37 | 48 |
| KenPom | 44 | 43 | 46 | 33 | 53 | 48 | 39 | 50 |
| Torvik | 48 | 37 | 44 | 36 | 34 | 55 | 41 | 50 |
| Predictive avg. | 41.7 | 39.7 | 48.0 | 31.3 | 46.0 | 51.7 | 39.0 | 49.3 |
| KPI | 57 | 60 | 39 | 54 | 48 | 36 | 53 | 50 |
| SOR | 52 | 43 | 48 | 38 | 42 | 50 | 55 | 56 |
| WAB | 46 | 49 | 44 | 43 | 42 | 48 | 55 | 53 |
| Results average | 51.7 | 50.7 | 43.7 | 45.0 | 44.0 | 44.7 | 54.3 | 53.0 |
| Metrics average | 45.6 | 45.1 | 46.7 | 37.9 | 45.9 | 49.0 | 45.9 | 50.1 |
| Bubble rank | 3 | 2 | 6 | 1 | T4 | 7 | T4 | 8 |
*Not a factor considered by the committee; just for information purposes.
In addition, taking a simple average of the seven metrics shows that Carolina had the best score among the combined measures. This is not to say that the committee weighed all those equally, but it simply indicates UNC’s strength among its bubble peers. Beyond that, the Tar Heels were 8–2 over their last 10 games, a factor that used to be considered but is no longer. That was also tied for first among the bubble teams, plus Carolina was one of three bubble teams that won two games in their conference tournament.
Some argue that analytics are killing the game and that, at some point, actually winning games has to come into play. UNC’s brutal schedule certainly worked in its favor, but the case can be made that a tournament team is expected to win more than one game against top-tier teams. The argument can also be made that the metrics, particularly the results-based metrics, are designed to account for the record. It would seem the committee penalized Carolina for its lack of wins, moving the top metrics team to the last team in.
In the end, there were a number of firsts in this tournament selection. For the first time, there was not one, but two teams were selected (Oklahoma and Texas) that won only one-third of their league games (both were 6–12 in the SEC). For the first time, not one, but two teams were selected (Xavier and North Carolina) who only won one Quad 1 game.
Ultimately, it may have been a stretch for the Tar Heels to make the dance, but not as big of a stretch as some pundits would have you believe.
Doc Kennedy is an alum, longtime UNC fan, and former high school and college basketball coach who wrote for Tar Heel Blog for years.
Photo by Smith Hardy
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