The Blind Eye Test: Your chance to be on the NCAA committee

• Each NCAA tournament resume is flawed in a different way
• Sometimes the committee covers the names of the schools to focus solely on bodies of work
• It helps committee members make decisions based on who teams played%2C where they played and how they did

When the NCAA tournament selection committee makes decisions on at-large berths and seeds, it sometimes covers the names of the schools on team reports to focus solely on the bodies of work.

It helps committee members make decisions based on who teams played, where they played and how they did, and guarantees that no one is influenced by a school's name.

Let's compare the résumés of two teams with strong tournament credentials. Both teams are expected to make the field. The issue is seeding. The question: Which team has a stronger overall body of work? You decide.

TEAM A RÉSUMÉ

• Record vs. Division I: 15-4
• RPI: 13
• Road/Neutral court record: 7-3
• Non-league Strength of schedule: 80
• Vs. top 50 teams: 5-3
• Vs. top 100: 7-3
• Vs. sub-300: 3-0
• Best RPI wins: 3, 5, 25
• Worst RPI losses: 121, 12, 11
• Analysis: Aside from the loss to the No. 121 team in the RPI – clearly an outlier – this is an impressive NCAA tournament resume. What stands out the most is that this team has demonstrated the ability to beat some of the very best teams in the nation. More than that, it has a strong record against top 100 teams, which any team with hopes of earning a high seed should have.

TEAM B RÉSUMÉ

• Record vs. Division I: 17-3
• RPI: 29
• Road/Neutral court record: 6-2
• Non-league Strength of schedule: 148
• Vs. top 50 teams: 3-2
• Vs. top 100: 4-3
• Vs. sub-300: 1-0
• Best RPI wins: 36, 39, 47
• Worst RPI losses: 52, 31, 17
• Analysis: This is a solid NCAA tournament resume. The team has shown it is capable of winning on the road. It has lost to one team outside the top 50. The record against top 100 teams is just okay. That would be one thing that is less than impressive on the resume. Another is that this team has yet to beat a team rated in the top 25 of the RPI. The non-league strength of schedule rating is less than exceptional for a team with designs on a high seed.

BOTTOM LINE

Whether you most value RPI, non-league strength of schedule, top 25 RPI wins, top 100 RPI record, the decision here is fairly clear: Team A has the stronger tournament resume. Make no mistake, Team B has a resume befitting a team seeded between four and six. But even with the loss to the No. 121^st team in the RPI – a questionable loss but clearly an anomaly – Team A should be in the mix for a No. 3 seed at the moment. The selection committee makes clear that it does not put too much weight on any one win or loss.Okay, who are the teams?

Team A is Michigan.

Team B is Louisville.

Obviously they met in last year's national title game, but that is irrelevant. At this point in this season, most reasonable people would seed Michigan a line or two higher than Louisville. The Wolverines have changed the entire complexion of their season with recent wins over elite competition such as Michigan State, Iowa and Wisconsin.

The curious note in this comparison is that one top 25 poll – the USA TODAY Sports Coaches Poll – does not agree. Louisville is tied for seventh. Michigan is 14th. If you're scratching your head on that one, you're not the only one. But the important thing to remember is that the committee takes an exhaustive look at teams' entire bodies of work. And in this case, at least at the moment, expect Michigan to be seeded higher even though it is lower in the poll.

Eric Prisbell, a national college football reporter for USA TODAY Sports, is on Twitter @EricPrisbell.

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