Teams from power conferences with great records tend to win the NCAA Tournament (a team with seven or more losses has won the title just three times in the past 20 years) -- an unsurprising fact given the game of basketball is played in both the regular season and in the tournament. Still, the NCAA clearly places a high value on other measures of a team's success like strength of schedule and performance on neutral courts. Maybe, they have research to support their stance we the general public have yet to see.

More likely, the tournament selection committee does not have such research. Their job isn't to pick the teams they think are best suited for the NCAA Tournament. Their job is to pick the teams they believe had the most impressive regular seasons.

That makes sense in terms of keeping out the opinions of committee members high or low on a team's potential despite regular season results (preventing a program like Michigan State from grabbing a 2 or 3 seed when their earlier season losses are more indicative of a 4). The philosophy doesn't always make sense, however, if strength of schedule or away wins aren't as translatable to tournament success as are wins and losses.

The selection committee needs to conduct a deep analysis of how all the factors they consider when choosing tournament teams relate to tournament success. For example, does a team with a regular season like SMU typically perform worse or better than the two teams that made it over them, Xavier and N.C. State, with worse records but better SOS's? Does a hot team like Virginia advance further than a relatively cold one like Arizona?

Even if the committee should base most of its formula on a candidate's resume rather than their potential, it should also make some room based on analysis of past tournaments. Currently, only a team's recent performance seems to have any relation to tournament success -- why Syracuse and their still gaudy record received a 3 seed and not a 2.