WAB Is Going To Be On NCAA Team Sheets!

The NCAA Team Sheets are going to have Wins Above Bubble! That was one of the excellent pieces of news that came out of the meetings of the NCAA's Men's Basketball Committee the past few days. Today it was announced that T-Rank (from Bart Torvik's excellent site) and Wins Above Bubble (apparently the NCAA's NET-based version) are going to be added to the NCAA Team Sheets, which will make them much more accessible for the NCAA's Selection Committee.

This is a big deal because Wins Above Bubble (WAB) often paints a different picture for teams that play a non-traditional power conference schedule (see mid-majors). It's especially valuable because it's so difficult for elite mid-majors to get certain types of games (home games against power conference teams for instance). Don't believe me? Here are the top teams to miss the NCAA Tournament according to T-Rank WAB the past five seasons (well minus 2020 because there was no tournament):

• 2024: Indiana St. (28th), Princeton (42nd), Seton Hall (43rd)
• 2023: Oklahoma St. (51st), Sam Houston St. (52nd), Santa Clara (53rd)
• 2022: SMU (38th), Wake Forest (44th), Texas A&M (47th)
• 2021: Arizona (37th), Louisville (39th), SMU (50th)
• 2019: UNC Greensboro (35th), North Carolina St. (37th), TCU (42nd)

Last season's Indiana St. team is the prime example of the types of teams a WAB metric can benefit. The Sycamores were 28-6 when they lost to Drake in the Missouri Valley Conference tournament final. Three of those losses were to Alabama, Michigan St. and Drake on the road — games most bubble teams would be expected to lose. WAB properly contextualizes those losses and also just how difficult it is to go 10-0 in Q3 games, which is what ISU did while playing its MVC regular season schedule.

UNC Greensboro in 2019 is another perfect example. The Spartans under Wes Miller were 28-6 on Selection Sunday and eventually ended up with an NIT No. 1 seed despite being ranked 100th in T-Rank and 87th in KenPom. Why? Because none of those six losses came against a team ranked lower than 62nd (Furman) on T-Rank that season. While a 2-6 record against Quad 1 doesn't look that impressive it matters than five of those games were against Quad 1-A and that they went 24-0 against Q2 and above. Wins Above Bubble is able to normalize those types of resumes.

Hopefully this will lead to a bigger tent in at-large selection conversations. Teams that might not have the "traditional" resume can at least get a shot. (Note: For much of last season this would've included a team like Syracuse.) It will also help better sort out resumes as conferences continue to balloon and the traditional home-and-homes disappear from conference play. (Look how many ACC teams appear on that list above.)

It's not just mid-majors that will benefit from this change, but it's a good step towards equity.