On the list of people you might have expected to see quoted in an article about college basketball and the array of numbers at the core of the NCAA Tournament selection process, I imagine you wouldn’t have expected to encounter the words of the late British economist Ronald Coase.
“If you torture the data long enough,” he once said, “it will confess to anything you like.”
Who knew he was such an expert on Big 12 basketball?
Yes, I’m kidding, and yes, I know it’s dangerous to joke about such serious matters as March Madness. Everyone wants to be in. Not everyone gets the chance. And few, even among those affected, have a full understanding of why their team isn’t on the ideal side of the NCAA “bubble”.
And it might be as difficult to figure out this season as any in recent memory, because the metric at the core of the process – the NCAA Evaluation Tool, or NET – is speaking a language some outside the Big 12 apparently haven’t been able to translate.
MORE: Latest projections for men’s bracket | Women’s bracket
“You can manipulate the NET,” Clemson coach Brad Brownell told WCCP radio in February. “And whether people want to say the NET is the be all, end-all, it’s all anybody talks about. That’s why it is so…
