Major Conference Bias and the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament

The following paper examines the potential bias by the NCAA men's basketball selection committee in favor of major conferences. Employing data from the 1997 - 2006 tournaments, we find evidence for bias in the tournament seeding of teams from the six power conferences when judged against the remaining mid-major and minor conferences. More specifically, the analysis indicates members of the Southeastern Conference (SEC) are seeded two positions higher (better) than the model would predict. In addition, the results indicate that members of the Atlantic Coastal Conference (ACC) are commonly seeded to positions lower (worse) than predicted.