EAST COAST BIAS IN THE NCAA TOURNAMENT
Open Access
- Author:
- Shannon, Matthew Francis
- Area of Honors:
- Finance
- Degree:
- Bachelor of Science
- Document Type:
- Thesis
- Thesis Supervisors:
- James Alan Miles, Thesis Supervisor
James Alan Miles, Thesis Honors Advisor
Dr. Joseph Randall Woolridge, Faculty Reader - Keywords:
- basketball
NCAA
tournament
bias
east coast bias
conference bias
school size bias
selection committee
seeding
geographical bias
at-large - Abstract:
- The NCAA Division I men’s basketball tournament is one of the most popular sporting events in the world with millions of fans packing stadiums and tuning in from home to watch the games. With such a large audience watching the games the four-week tournament has evolved into a moneymaking machine with millions of dollars at stake for both the NCAA and the respective schools that participate in the tournament. Participation in the tournament is not only a source of school pride, but also a substantial source of revenue for participating schools. Thus, selection to the NCAA tournament has a significant economic impact on these institutions. The tournament is comprised of 64 Division I men’s basketball teams. Teams automatically make the tournament upon winning their conference tournament; teams are also selected by a committee to fill the remaining 34 seeds for the tournament. This same selection committee seeds these 64 teams, dividing them into four regions with each team assigned a ranking from 1 to 16. This analysis of the tournament looks to see if there is a geographic bias in tournament selection, in which a team earns a higher ranking then they should earn, based upon location. The analysis also looks at size and conference bias in the tournament seeding process.