CARMEL, Ind. — In a private room at a boutique Carmel hotel, 12 people from across the country sit down for one of the hardest jobs in college sports.
The NCAA Selection Committee is tasked with selecting and seeding 68 teams for the Men’s NCAA Tournament.
The committee members are athletic directors and conference commissioners from across the country. Since 2022, they have gathered for the days leading up to Selection Sunday at the Hotel Carmichael. In a back ballroom, the members work for hours each day determining the final bracket.
To get into the meeting room, you have to go past a black curtain with a sign marking the room as “private.” Then, you’ll hit a security desk, monitored 24 hours a day. After security, there is an additional set of doors leading to the back ballroom where the committee works.
In years past, only the selection committee and a select group of NCAA personnel have been allowed in that room – until this year. For the first time, CBS4 and FOX59 were granted access inside the committee’s conference room with a TV camera for 10 minutes.
On the morning of Wednesday, March 12, the NCAA Selection Committee met at 11 a.m. Members all sat around multiple tables pushed together in the center of the room. North Carolina Athletic Director and committee chairperson Bubba Cunningham sat at the head of the table. During the 10 minutes we were allowed inside, Cunningham took questions from national reporters over a conference call.
”It may or may not move somebody up on the seed line, but we’ll consider what could happen this week,” Cunningham said when asked about how the outcome of conference tournament games could swing committee decisions this week.
The committee members are all set up at their own assigned seats around the table. Each of the members have at least four monitors in front of them. Anything they could need is in the room. One table along the wall has different office supplies like Sharpies, highlighters, pens, paper and a printer.
The goal is to make sure everything is taken care of, so the members have zero distractions. Austin Campagna, the Director of Sales and Marketing at Hotel Carmichael, said they spend months preparing for this meeting.
”We have a lot of important meetings throughout the year, but this is one of our favorites,” Campagna said.
Like the committee analyzes head-to-head matchups and advanced metrics, Campagna and his team pour over the details of what the committee needs while they’re at the Carmichael.
”We spend a lot of time with their team making sure the internet speeds and security is just as they need it and make sure their food is planned and prepared properly for them,” Campagna said.
After all, this isn’t just where the committee meets for these days leading up to Selection Sunday, it’s where they live, too.
”They do stay here, and we’re happy to have them here for a long period of time,” Campagna said.
Campagna said the staff at the Hotel Carmichael is well aware of the important postseason decisions being made just feet away. Campagna, a Purdue grad himself, said they never let their loyalties come up or offer their thoughts on where teams should be seeded.
”Our staff knows it’s a confidential event that we’re here to support, and we let them do their job,” he said.
With the meals, accommodations, wifi and security all taken care of, what’s left is just the biggest off-court decisions of college basketball.
”That’s the work of the committee and there’s 12 of us and we’re going to have 12 different opinions,” Cunningham said on the Wednesday morning conference call.
It’s no easy job. Brian Tonsoni knows that well. He spends hours each basketball season trying to mimic the committee’s decisions.
Tonsoni is a teacher at Delphi High School and leads the Delphi Bracketology club, a group of students who study college basketball and the metrics around it to try and create a bracket exactly like the NCAA Selection Committee.
”The committee is trying to produce something that is the best,” Tonsoni said. “I think that is my main message. They’re really trying to put together the best tournament, they’re not out there against this conference or this team or for this team.”
Tonsoni and Delphi Bracketology are not alone in their mission to match the committee’s bracket. Over the years, the interest in bracketology and the committee’s decisions has grown. Delphi Bracketology is a part of a national competition with more than 250 other entries. Tonsoni said it’s grown by more than a hundred entries just in the last 10 years.
”That’s what makes it beautiful, though, too,” Tonsoni said. “Everyone has an opinion, everyone is interested.”
Tonsoni has a lot of respect for what the committee does in that back conference room in the Hotel Carmichael.
”I think it is an extremely difficult job with all the data points and different conferences and different levels of competition,” he said.
Measuring modern college basketball isn’t just about wins and losses, it’s metrics.
”Math,” Tonsoni exclaimed. “It’s a bunch of mathematical formulas.”
Mostly, ones with weird names.
”All of the factors that we’ve talked about, whether it’s a quad win or the NET or the toRvik or the WAB,” Cunningham said.
And as Tonsoni, or any bracketologist will tell you, there’s really no right answer to every seeding question.
”All of the metrics matter, and it’s 12 people trying to make a decision on who’s the best team and how do we decide that?” Cunningham said on the Wednesday conference call. “Head-to-head is probably going to be really important to some people in the room, and you know the overall body of work is what’s going to be considered.”
The work for these committee members started long before this Wednesday’s conference call, but it will intensify until Sunday, when the bracket must be finalized.
”The first thing we’ll do is get the teams in the tournament,” Cunningham said. “We’ll scrub it, we’ll bracket it, and then we’ll have to make some adjustments, at that point. But that’s a ways off, and it’s speculative right now where these different teams are going to fall.”
But, it’s speculation only has a few more days to go. The committee has their work cut out for them.
“This is it is a huge amount of data and they spend a huge amount of time uncovering everything that they can and then there are no clear cut answers and they have to make tough decisions,” Tonsoni said.
Ultimately, the paths and postseason lives of each NCAA Division One college basketball team is in the hands of the committee.
”Great for some and very disappointing for others who don’t make the field of 68,” Cunningham said.
Come Sunday at 6 p.m. ET on CBS, those decisions will be made public for the world. Members of the committee will join the Selection Sunday show on CBS to discuss their decisions. With the entire country watching, they’ll be live from the Hotel Carmichael.
”The city of Carmel is very proud whenever they see the hotel on TV and that we’re the host for this process,” Campagna said.
You can watch Selection Sunday at 6 p.m. ET on CBS to see the Men’s NCAA Tournament bracket. The Women’s NCAA Tournament bracket will also be revealed on CBS at 8 p.m. ET.
The Women’s NCAA Selection Committee also meets to decide their field of teams in Indianapolis, but declined to be apart of our story, citing the importance of privacy around the selection committee set up and location.
