Adventurous Bruno tames NCAA selection committee myths

Guess we know what Doug Bruno's New Year's resolution was.

The DePaul women's basketball coach must have vowed to be more adventurous in 2009.

After all, he's going to jump into Lake Michigan on Sunday, when temperatures are supposed to climb no higher than 26 degrees.

It'll be his first ever "Polar Plunge," the annual event at Chicago's North Avenue Beach that benefits the Special Olympics.

But even more "harrowing" than that is what Bruno did earlier this month when he dared to - make sense out of the NCAA Women's Tournament selection committee.

Talk about a wild adventure!

For years, college basketball coaches all over the country, on both the men's and women's side, have grumbled and griped about the bracketing of the NCAA Tournament.

Inevitably, we'll hear from some who just can't seem to wrap their heads around it. They don't understand it.

We've seen coaches question the logic behind the geographical placement of certain teams, or the way the field was seeded. Some have even floated pseudo conspiracy theories about why certain teams make the cut over others.

In an effort to lend more transparency to the process, the NCAA invited a group of women's coaches and media types to take part in a two-day seminar at the NCAA headquarters in Indianapolis that included an inside look at how the system works and a mock bracket exercise.

It was the second year the NCAA invited the media, and the first time it invited coaches.

Along with Bruno, Notre Dame's Muffet McGraw, Oklahoma's Sherri Coale and Texas A&M's Gary Blair also jumped at the chance for a backstage pass.

"It was a great experience because it was so educational," Bruno said. "We got to see from the inside just how difficult putting the bracket together is. I think the main thing you took away from it was that the process is really much more pure than people give it credit for."

Many coaches don't know it, simply because it would mean reading even more NCAA fine print, but there are all kinds of nonnegotiable policies and procedures in place to preserve the integrity of the selection, seeding and placement process.

"Like, no two teams from the same conference can meet up before the regional final," Bruno said. "That could be one reason a team might be sent to a regional that is far away when there is already one nearby its campus. The computer actually sends out a red alert if policies like that are violated.

"There are so many of those policies and they all have to be adhered to. It makes the process of getting a bracket out very difficult."

Bruno and the rest of the coaches bracketed only the top seven seeds for each regional in their mock exercise, but they still got a very true flavor for the all-encompassing and almost overwhelming nature of the task.

The coaches were also told about all the work that is done in the months leading up to the big day.

Committee members travel the country all season to watch games. Between that and the games they view on tape, they see between 150 and 200 games.

Meanwhile, they're also given a daily supply of news, facts and figures about every team in America to sift through.

"I kind of knew back when (DePaul athletic director) Jean Lenti Ponsetto was on the committee and then chaired it how much sincere thought and effort goes into this thing," Bruno said. "But now that I've seen it, to me it feels like the fine print you read when you're trying to put together a kid's toy at Christmas. Now I know how difficult it is."

Spread the word: If Doug Bruno could pass along one bit of information about the selection process to his colleagues, he says he would tell them that there is no special consideration given to teams based on what conference they play in.

"They really did convince me that each and every team is judged on its own individual body of work," Bruno said. "A lot of people like to say, 'Well, how many teams is the Big Ten going to get? Or, the Big East deserves this many.'

"Based on everything else that needs to be considered, I really believe the committee doesn't think about that at all."

Ice man: So how did Doug Bruno get roped into the ice-cold "bath" he'll take on Sunday?

Well, despite the unpleasant temperatures, it didn't take much arm-twisting. Bruno is always up for a good cause, and he's been involved with Special Olympics for years. Plus, his sister-in-law Maureen is a former Special Olympics athlete.

She is a longtime team manager and will also take the plunge.

Down low on Demons: DePaul, which is 20-8 and a near lock for the NCAA Tournament, will close out the regular season Monday at Cincinnati. Then the Big East tournament starts on Friday.

The Blue Demons are led by two big-time troopers.

Deirdre Naughton (15.6 ppg) came down with pneumonia earlier in the season and essentially played through it, and Natasha Williams (14.2 ppg) sprained the MCL in her knee but has kept chugging along.

pbabcock@dailyherald.com