Vice President and Debbie and Stanley Lefkowitz ’65 Director of Athletics Arthur Johnson is one of 12 members of the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Committee who selects and seeds the 68-team NCAA Tournament field. 

On March 19, as the first day of March Madness gets underway, Arthur Johnson sits in the empty upper-level seats at Xfinity Mobile Arena. With a million things on his mind, he reaches into his bag for a thick binder of NCAA Tournament protocols that he’ll review during a morning meeting with representatives from the teams participating in the first and second rounds in Philadelphia. 

The men’s basketball NCAA Tournament is never far from his thoughts. Johnson, vice president and Debbie and Stanley Lefkowitz ’65 Director of Athletics at Temple, serves on the NCAA Division I Men’s Basketball Committee and is one of only 12 people in the country selected for these prestigious roles, which select and seed the field of 68 teams in the tournament each year. 

He agreed to invite Temple Now behind the scenes to see what it’s like to run a host site for a day, with full access to meetings, player and coach interviews, and open team practices. He also offered a rare peek into how the Men’s Basketball Committee makes its decisions and some of the most debated teams that shaped this year’s bracket. 

The day job still must go on  

It’s just past 7:30 a.m., and Johnson’s mind is racing as he organizes his thoughts for a 9 a.m. pre-tournament meeting in a media interview room at Xfinity Mobile Arena. He is still simultaneously checking emails and answering calls for his primary job, where he oversees all student-athletes across Temple’s 19 NCAA Division I varsity teams. 

“You still have to do your other job,” Johnson says, chuckling, “whether I am taking calls or answering emails, as I will be during today’s opening team practices. I have a great staff helping me keep things running when I can’t be there.” 

Burning the midnight oil 

When the committee spent the week at Hotel Carmichael in Carmel, Indiana, leading up to Selection Sunday, Johnson recalls starting at 8 a.m. on Saturday and burning the midnight oil as they voted on the first 24 at-large bids and ran through countless scenarios for the field of 68. 

Tapping on his tablet, he scrolls through several lists of the teams, explaining the committee’s ‘scrubbing’ process, a grueling and meticulous task in which they compare teams head-to-head, adjusting their seeding up or down a spot, using team sheets and metrics to finalize the most accurate field in time for it to air live on Selection Sunday at 6 p.m. 

“You get into scenarios like if team A had lost their conference championship they would have stayed at 16, but if team B won, they would have moved ahead of team C,” he says. “With five championship games on Sunday, those games really do matter, and you have all these contingency brackets where seeding the teams in time for Selection Sunday is stressful as hell.   

“We also try to avoid pairing teams that already played each other—either during the regular season or in last year’s tournament—especially in the First Four and first round,” he adds. “We finished the final selections just 30 minutes before you saw it live on TV this year.” 

All eyes on Johnson: NCAA rules and prep 

So, as Johnson kicks off his pre-tournament meeting, he sits in a packed media room, surrounded by NCAA representatives, TV coordinators and staff from all the participating teams. All eyes are on him as he reviews standard tournament rules, such as players must always wear the NCAA patch on their jerseys and cannot display individual NIL (name, image and likeness) promotions or logos during games. He also introduces a new rule: Each player’s availability must be reported by 9 p.m. the night before and again two hours before tip-off due to the rise of sports wagering. 

“We don’t even release who will be officiating until one hour before tip-off because many sports bettors even know these referees by name and use analytics to track their tendencies, like who calls the most fouls, and they access this information quickly,” he explains. “For the Final Four, we will announce the game officials at 1 p.m. on social media, so everyone gets the information at the same time.” 

Johnson leans forward in his chair while he prompts each team to state its practice time preferences and uniform colors. Higher-seeded teams, like UConn (No. 2 seed), chose first, a perk of their seed that typically includes access to the more spacious locker room on-site when possible. 

Once the morning meeting wraps, Johnson takes an elevator down to center court to review TV production with staff. Walking on the floors with staff, he points out a camera operator station that had been in the lower-level seats behind the backboard, now moved to courtside to free up more seats. 

He says the ticket demand was already significant in February before fans even knew which teams would be playing. “It blew my mind,” Johnson says, after discovering that about 97% of tickets for Xfinity Mobile Arena, which holds 20,478, had already been sold when the selection committee met in February to preview the Sweet 16 sites. 

“When I first saw it, I thought, this can’t be right,” he says. “Whether it’s local fans or people coming from around the country, the interest in this tournament each year is fascinating.” 

Debates around the bubble and the metrics  

That enthusiasm is palpable during the day’s open practices, as players, marching bands and cheer squads from each team raced onto the courts in turn throughout the day. Johnson knows it’s not just the games that draw attention, but that fans are equally fascinated by the metrics behind the committee’s decisions. Sitting in his courtside chair, he explains that some of his favorite metrics to use include NET, WAB (Wins Above Bubble) and Torvik, which tracks things such as strength of schedule, offensive and defensive efficiency, and wins against quality opponents ranked from Quad 1 (top-level) to Quad 4 (lowest).  

Johnson says he places particular emphasis on wins on the road or at neutral sites against opponents who are higher on the quad scale and that he values how some of the metrics filters out stats after a game’s outcome has been decided. He also takes head-to-head results into account when it applies as well. 

“Each committee member has their own preferences when it comes to metrics and what they may value most,” Johnson says. “We look at head-to-head results. Did the teams have common opponents? Did injuries contribute to any losses? Did they avoid scheduling tough opponents? We also factor in if a key player is coming back, so injuries were a big part of our committee discussions.” 

From his seat at the committee table, Johnson recalls that some of the most engaging debate revolved around Miami (Ohio), which went 31-0 in the regular season before a shocking 87-83 loss to UMass in the Mid-American Conference tournament yet still earned a controversial 11-seed at-large bid over power conference teams Auburn and Oklahoma, both among the last four out. 

“Some discussion points were about how Miami (Ohio) is a mid-major and didn’t have the strongest schedule, but you have to ask yourself, how many other teams in the last 50 years have finished the regular season undefeated? Only five teams,” he says. “No matter the schedule, winning that many straight games is really difficult to do, and we agreed that it still earned them an at-large bid. 

“You can have one of the toughest strengths of schedules with high-quality wins, but again, winning consistently still matters,” he adds. “Your body of work gets you in the tournament; your seed is when the scrubbing starts.” 

Catching up with old friends 

Later in the afternoon, as one of the day’s team practice sessions wraps up, Johnson heads backstage to check media stations and monitor the podium where players and coaches make themselves available to speak with the media. In the hallway, Johnson shares a warm hug with Tennessee Head Coach Rick Barnes, who was the head coach at Texas when he first worked in their athletic department in 1999. Their friendship, built during that time, has only grown since. In moments like this, Johnson reflects on what it means to serve on the committee. 

“It’s extremely humbling; it’s something you can only dream of, and it’s a great chance to catch up with old friends in athletics, like Coach Barnes,” Johnson says. “It’s a privilege to represent Temple, especially with its rich basketball history, and to serve on this committee as a representative of the American Conference. The new leadership at Temple, from President John Fry to our coaches and staff, has been incredibly supportive.” 

With the Philadelphia site wrapped, Johnson’s work doesn’t slow down. Next, he’ll head to Washington, D.C., to oversee the Sweet 16, with games resuming on Friday, March 27.