A Glossary of Bracketology Terms

Most of these terms come up the first time you try to read a team sheet. None of them are complicated once someone defines them plainly, which is the only thing this page tries to do. For how the terms fit together into an actual selection process, read How the Field Gets Built.

At-Large Bid. A tournament spot the committee awards to a team that did not win its conference, based on the full season résumé. There are 44 of them in the 76-team field, and nearly every genuine bracketology argument is about the last few.

Automatic Qualifier (AQ). A spot earned by winning a conference championship, regardless of what the rest of the season looked like. All 32 Division I conferences get exactly one, which is how a team with a mediocre record still reaches the tournament by winning three games in March.

Bubble. The group of teams whose case is genuinely unresolved, sitting right around the cut line between the field and the NIT. A team "on the bubble" could plausibly land either way depending on the last week or two of results.

Field of 76. The current format, effective with the 2027 tournament: 32 automatic qualifiers plus 44 at-large bids. The expansion from 68 mostly changed the back of the bracket, where the Opening Round now covers far more teams than the old First Four did.

Selection Sunday. The day the committee announces the full field and every seed, always the Sunday after championship week. March 14, 2027 for the first 76-team field. This is when a bracket prediction stops being a prediction and can be scored in the Bracket Performance Calculator.

Recusal. A committee member leaves the room whenever their own school is discussed and does not vote on it. Worth knowing because it means the number of people evaluating any given bubble team is sometimes fewer than 12.

NET Ranking (NCAA Evaluation Tool). The NCAA's official sorting metric for selection and seeding, which replaced the old RPI. It blends game results, opponent quality, game location and a capped scoring margin into one number, refreshed daily. Bracket Studio pulls live NET from Warren Nolan. NET does not exist until early December, so before then the site ranks teams by ESPN's BPI and switches over automatically once NET goes live.

Quad Records. A team's record split into four tiers by opponent NET and game location, since a road win is worth more than the same win at home. Quad 1 is the toughest tier and Quad 4 the easiest. The committee looks hardest at a team's best Q1 and Q2 wins alongside its worst Q3 and Q4 losses.

Designated Metrics. The seven rankings that appear on every team sheet: NET, KPI, SOR, WAB, BPI, KenPom and T-Rank. A team needs an average of 125 or better across all seven to be eligible for an at-large bid.

WAB (Wins Above Bubble). How many more games a team won than a typical bubble team would have won against that same schedule. Useful because it rewards a hard schedule directly instead of treating strength of schedule as a separate line item.

KPI (Kevin Pauga Index). A résumé metric that assigns a value to every individual game played, then averages those values. It rewards what a team actually accomplished rather than predicting how good the team is.

SOR (Strength of Record). How difficult it would be for an average tournament team to produce this team's exact record against this team's exact schedule.

Team Sheet. The one-page summary the committee reviews for each team, carrying all seven designated metrics, the quad records, and the full game-by-game results. Everything the committee argues about is on it.

Nitty Gritty Report. Warren Nolan's name for the full team-sheet breakdown. Bracketologists use "the Nitty Gritty" as shorthand for this entire layer of data, as opposed to a win-loss record or a poll ranking.

Strength of Schedule (SOS). How difficult a team's full slate of opponents has been. It feeds into NET and the committee also considers it on its own, particularly the non-conference portion.

Seed List (S-Curve). The committee's true ranking of all 76 teams, 1 through 76, built before any seeds are assigned. Seed lines are slices of this list, and teams get "snaked" into regions from it so the four regions stay balanced. Almost everything else about the bracket is downstream of this one list.

Seed Line. A team's number from 1 to 16 within its region. Lower is stronger. A 1-seed is one of the four best teams in the field and a 16-seed is among the weakest teams to make it.

Opening Round. The 12 play-in games that trim the expanded field down to 64, played the Tuesday and Wednesday after Selection Sunday. Twenty-four teams take part: the 12 lowest-seeded automatic qualifiers and the 12 lowest-seeded at-large teams. Wichita hosts in 2027 and 2028.

Bracketing Principles. The rules governing region placement once the seed list is set, covering conference separation, geographic proximity, and avoiding rematches from earlier in the season. These are why the top overall seed does not always get the closest venue.

These three labels are how bubble teams get ranked below the cut line. They describe distance from the field, and they have nothing to do with tournament rounds.

First Four Out. The four teams the committee looked at hardest and still left out, usually separated from the last team in by one result.

Next Four Out. The tier below that. Still part of the real conversation, with a clearly weaker case.

Also Considered. A wider band of teams that got a genuine look but sat further from the cut line than either tier above.

Careful with "First Four Out." It means a team missed the field. The tournament's old "First Four" meant a team made the field and had to play its way through. Different concepts, similar names.

Paymon Scoring System. The method behind the Bracket Performance Calculator. It grades every team on how close your predicted seed came to the real one: 6 points for an exact match, 4 for within one seed line, 3 for correctly putting the team in the field at all, and 0 for leaving a tournament team out.

Bracket Performance Calculator. The tool that scores a finished Bracket Studio prediction against the announced field. See the Paymon guide for the full walkthrough.

If a term here was the piece you were missing, Bracket Studio is where you put it to work. The live NET data and quad records are already loaded.