NCAA surveying members about basketball tourney selectors, payouts

Something to keep an eye on as it may have an effect on future NCAA selections and payouts:

“When we talked about the autonomy governance system, there were general assurances we were given – and some of it’s actually codified in the (NCAA) constitution – that the basketball system will be left alone and the revenue distribution system will be left alone,” Metro Atlantic Athletic Conference Commissioner Rich Ensor told USA TODAY Sports after Monday’s meeting.

“Yet, here we are 18 months into the new governance process and we have a survey asking us to look at the composition of the men’s basketball committee and a survey telling us we have a new revenue distribution amount (and) do we go into a required academic distribution.”

The Men’s Basketball Committee’s composition is a touchy issue, both from a geographic perspective and a classification perspective. It affects perceptions about which schools get picked for the 36 at-large spots in the 68-team field.

The committee’s composition has been unchanged for about 15 years since being expanded from nine members to 10. Since then, in addition to the introduction of the autonomy governance system, there have been numerous changes in conference alignments that have affected regional balances. For example, the American Athletic Conference is still considered an East region conference even though many of its member schools are in the South.