Progress!
The NCAA is making a couple of additions to the team sheets that the basketball selection committee uses to construct the tournament field—Bart Torvik’s ratings, and Wins Above Bubble.
Wins Above Bubble is helpful in that it sets aside schedule strength and asks “how well did Team A perform in the games it played relative to an average bubble team?” Let’s say a team wins a game at the best team in the country. The expected wins (i.e., win probability) in that matchup for an average bubble team on the road might be 20%, say. So you take that 1.0 wins, subtract 0.20, and get +0.80 Wins Above Bubble. Do that for every game and add it up.
This is a helpful results-based method that can distinguish teams which typically get dismissed based on more traditional metrics. This past season’s WAB, for instance, shows that Indiana State rather clearly should have been in the field. (As many were hollering at the time.) Ditto NC State in 2019, by the way.
Some have even suggested replacing the committee entirely with a results-based method like this one. And while we know that’ll never happen, having WAB as an official part of the process is a step in the right direction.