Decoding MTE College Basketball: A Comprehensive Guide
Filling out an NCAA tournament bracket every March is a tradition. To fully appreciate the nuances of college basketball, especially the increasing role of Multi-Team Events (MTEs), it's essential to understand the terminology and concepts that shape the game. This guide offers a glossary of important college basketball-related terms, shedding light on everything from player archetypes to tournament selection processes.
Key Player Types and Attributes
3-and-D: This phrase has really increased in popularity in the last five years or so, especially at the NBA level. A 3-and-D player is typically an off-ball guard or wing who's a strong 3-point shooter and who plays commendable defense. Traditionally, a 3-and-D player is thought of as an important role player, rather than a team's leading scorer.
Glue Guy: This is a term that you'll hear a lot in college basketball conversations about which players help hold a team together, both in statistical production and intangible qualities like leadership. There's not necessarily one standard definition for "glue guy," but it's typically not someone who leads his team in scoring and it's not always even a starter. Maybe it's a veteran who's an emotional leader of his team. Maybe it's a player who's the third or fourth option on offense but who's responsible for a critical eight to 10 points per game.
Stretch Four: This is a term that's used for a forward who can also shoot from outside the arc. You may even hear the term "stretch five" sometimes, which refers to a center who can shoot 3-pointers.
X-Factor: You might hear the descriptors "X-factor" and "glue guy" used interchangeably, or you might be confused as to what is the difference between the two terms. You can think of an X-factor as a player who can take a team from good to great. An X-factor could be a team's third-leading scorer who erupts for 20 points. It could be a player with elite athleticism who could be the most talented player on the floor when he puts everything together.
Read also: Comprehensive Ranking: Women's College Basketball
Basketball IQ: Basketball IQ is the fundamental, high-level understanding of the sport that a player displays repeatedly through his actions and decisions on the court. A player with a high basketball IQ is someone who understands time and score, and whether it's better to hurry up and push the pace, or if it's better to slow down and work the clock. Basketball IQ could be displayed through an understanding of the scouting report and which opposing players can't be left open from behind the arc, and which ones aren't 3-point shooters. "(It's who coaches) think is an extension of them," Katz said. "You've got to be a good passer. Someone who's a facilitator, leader. Did your team excel?
Understanding the NCAA Tournament
Automatic Bid: In Division I, there are 32 conferences. Each has its own conference tournament at the conclusion of the regular season. Each conference tournament champion earns an automatic bid to the NCAA Tournament.
At-Large Bid: Teams that receive a bid to the NCAA tournament are broken into two categories: At-large bids, and automatic bids. The selection committee hands out 36 at-large bids to teams that did not win their conference tournament, but impressed the committee enough to earn a trip to the tournament.
The Bubble: A team that is “on the bubble” for the NCAA tournament is one whose qualification for the tournament could go either way.
Cinderella: Much like the titular character from the fairy tale, a Cinderella team is one that is much more successful than expected.
Read also: The Future of College Basketball: Nantz's View
Big Dance: The "Big Dance" is another name for the NCAA tournament. Since the NCAA tournament is often referred to as the Big Dance, teams that make the tournament - either through an automatic bid or an at-large bid - are often said to "go dancing." Sometimes, quite literally.
Seed: 68 teams earn bids to the men's DI NCAA tournament, and each one receives a seed - from 1 to 16 -that determines where the team will be placed in the bracket. After the First Four, there are four of every seed. The seeds are also ranked overall from 1 to 68.
Selection Sunday: Every year, the NCAA tournament bracket is revealed on Selection Sunday, when the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Committee selects and seeds 68 teams for the NCAA tournament. There are 32 automatic bids and the rest of the teams earn at-large bids.
Selection Committee: The 10-member NCAA Men's Division I Basketball Committee is responsible for selecting, seeding and bracketing the field for the NCAA Tournament. School and conference administrators are nominated by their conference, serve five-year terms and represent a cross-section of the Division I membership.
Bracket: This is what we fill out every March online or, if you're old school, by hand. The bracket is the physical representation of the 68-team NCAA tournament. The NCAA tournament bracket is split into four regionals. The South, East, West, and Midwest.
Read also: The Championship Tournament
First Four: The First Four is the set of four games that kick off the NCAA tournament every season in Dayton, Ohio. NCAA Senior Vice President for Basketball Dan Gavitt said in October 2020 that "The University of Dayton and the Dayton community take incredible pride in tipping off March Madness every year with the First Four. It's been a very successful place from a fan attendance standpoint, from a team experience standpoint, from a centrality of the location in the country to get teams in and out to start and to go on to the first-round sites after those teams advance.
First Four Out: When ranking all 68 teams in the NCAA tournament, the First Four Out fall in spots 69-72.
Last Four In: Another unofficial term, the "last four in" refers to the final four teams that receive at-large bids to the tournament.
Regional: The NCAA tournament bracket is split into four regionals. The South, East, West, and Midwest. The first four rounds of the tournament are played in regionals, with the Elite Eight serving as the regional championship game.
Sweet 16: The third round of the tournament, where only 16 teams remain. The winner of each game will play in the Elite Eight.
Elite Eight: The fourth round of the tournament, when just eight teams remain, is known as the Elite Eight. This round is the final game for each regional, before the four winners move on to the national semifinal, known as the Final Four.
Final Four: The fifth round of the tournament, when just four teams remain, is known as the Final Four. This is the penultimate round of the tournament, when the winners of each regional face off for a chance to play in the championship game.
Most Outstanding Player (MOP): The Most Outstanding Player is given to the best player at the Final Four every season, based on performances in the two national semifinal games and the national championship. The Most Outstanding Player is almost always awarded to a player on the team that wins the national championship, but there have been instances where a player from another team has been so outstanding that he/she receives the award. Plus, there's not always a guarantee that the best player on the championship-winning team earns MOP honors.
One Shining Moment: After every NCAA tournament, there's a video called One Shining Moment that's based on a song with the same name, written by David Barrett specifically for the NCAA tournament. The One Shining Moment video will show every team in that season's NCAA tournament at least once and the video will show some of the most emotional moments - both highs and lows - from the tournament.
Evaluating Team Performance
AP Ranking: The Associated Press has been ranking the top basketball teams since 1948. In its current form, the poll ranks the top 25 teams in Division I via a ranking that is compiled from the ballots of 65 sports journalists across the country. The ranking has no official weight in the selection process, and even a No. 1 ranking in the AP poll does not technically guarantee a team a bid to the NCAA tournament.
BPI: College Basketball’s Power Index, invented by ESPN, is a statistic that measures how far above or below average every team is, and projects how well the team will do going forward. The index uses two measurements to do this: BPI Offense (measure of a team’s offensive strength compared to an average offense) and BPI Defense (measure of a team’s defensive strength compared to an average defense). BPI is calculated by finding the difference between these two measurements.
Defensive Efficiency: A simple statistic that calculates the points allowed per 100 defensive possessions. For example, if Team A’s opponent scored 80 points in a game with 75 possessions, Team A’s defensive efficiency would be 106.7.
KPI: KPI Sports ranks every team’s wins and losses on a scale of -1.0 (the worst possible loss) to +1.0 (the best possible win), and averages these scores across a season to give a score to a team’s winning percentage. The formula uses opponent’s winning percentage, opponent’s strength of schedule, scoring margin, pace of game, location, and opponent’s KPI ranking.
NET Rankings: The NCAA Evaluation Tool, or the NET, was introduced in 2018 for the 2018-19 men's basketball season, replacing the RPI as the primary sorting tool used by the NCAA Division I Men's Basketball Committee. It was created after consultation with Google Cloud Professional Services. The NET was changed prior to the 2020-21 season to increase its accuracy and reduce it from a five-component metric to just two components.
Offensive Efficiency: Points scored per 100 offensive possessions.
RPI: The basic RPI (Rating Percentage Index) consists of a team’s Division I winning percentage (25 percent weight), its opponents’ winning percentage (50 percent weight) and its opponents opponents’ winning percentage (25 percent weight).
Resume: You'll hear the word "resume" as it pertains to college basketball more and more often as the season gets closer to March. Similar to someone's professional resume, a college basketball team's resume is a list of their accomplishments and where they've been. A team's resume essentially refers to everything that's on a team sheet, which you can read about as you scroll down this glossary.
SAG: On a team sheet, “SAG” stands for Sagarin rankings, from sagarin.com. The Sagarin rankings account for score differentials, strength of schedule, and weights for how recent a game was (wins in February are worth more than wins in November). Sagarin rankings differ from KenPom rankings in that efficiency is not taken into account.
Strength of Record: From ESPN: “Strength of Record (SOR) is a measure of team accomplishment based on how difficult a team's W-L record is to achieve.
Team Sheets: An NCAA team sheet is the one-stop shop for any college basketball's team's record, schedule, strength of schedule and other metrics, and it's used in the NCAA tournament selection and seeding process. At the top of a men's basketball team's team sheet is the school name, the team's record, its NET ranking, KPI ranking, strength of record, ESPN's BPI ranking, kenpom.com ranking and Sagarin ranking.
Quadrant System: The quadrant system sorts wins and losses based on the combination of an opponent's NET ranking and the location of a game. Wins and losses are organized into one of four quadrants, which classifies every game based on the location of the game and the strength of the opponent.
Multi-Team Events (MTEs): A Modern Landscape
MTE (Multi-team event): MTEs, or multi-team events, have been around long before the 2020-21 college basketball season, but they might play a greater role than in any previous season, due to their ability to host multiple games in one location.
MTEs have become a significant part of the college basketball landscape, offering teams opportunities to play multiple games in a short period, often at neutral sites. These events can provide valuable experience, exposure, and revenue for participating programs. However, the NCAA’s ongoing effort to streamline and deregulate its extensive bylaws is creating controversy in one specific corner of the college sports world. A new legislative proposal-already approved by the men’s and women’s basketball oversight committees, and currently under review by the Division I council-would dramatically harm the business of basketball multiple-team events (MTEs) and may effectively eliminate most neutral-site games.
That system is now on the brink of transformation thanks to NCAA Proposal No. 2025-2, which would establish an across-the-board maximum of 32 regular-season contests for men’s and women’s basketball programs, regardless of whether they participate in MTEs. Under the NCAA’s current governance structure, the new plan will take effect in time for the 2026-27 academic year, unless the D-I council overturns the oversight committees’ recommendations. By doing away with the legislated incentive, the NCAA “will materially and significantly limit the opportunities for multiple team events to operate or exist,” The Gazelle Group president Rick Giles wrote in his letter, a copy of which was obtained by Sportico. “Hoping these MTE games will be replaced on their own is a fool’s errand,” Giles wrote.
Giles also raised the question of whether the proposal would impact the settlement he and three other event operators reached with the NCAA two decades ago, after the association adopted rules that schools could participate in two “exempt events”-as they were then known-every four years. The plaintiffs originally won a permanent injunction from a federal judge, before it was overturned by on appeal. After the sides continued to litigate the dispute, they agreed to settle in late 2005. The Gazelle Group’s current MTE portfolio includes the Empire Classic, Legends Classic, Gotham Classic, Sunshine Slam and Boardwalk Battle. It remains unclear what, if any, valid legal claims MTE operators could bring against the NCAA over its decision to deregulate.
Other MTE operators who spoke to Sportico shared a range of views on the matter, most of which were less ominous than Giles’. Around the same time, Starsiak noted that he and other tournament operators took part in individual calls with NCAA representatives. “It was massively bush league and frustrating that they sent two mid-level employees to basically take notes,” Starsiak said. “Coaches are still going to need a window during the season where you can play two games in three days or three games in five,” he said. “Teams are going to want experiences for their student-athletes and want to get more than one game at a time,” Shell, president of Total Sports Consulting, said. “It is hard to fill a 32-game schedule with just single games over the calendar. I think the financials are going to look different, and we’ll have to make them work in a way [for schools]. MTEs didn’t have to pay as much [before], because teams wanted to play that extra game each year.
“MTE operators, big and small, are here to serve the players, the coaches, and the fans, not the other way around,” Berger said. “Teams play games in MTEs that they would not otherwise play, and this produces matchups fans would not otherwise see,” Giles wrote to the D-I council. The price tag being presented to networks, sources say, represents a significant reduction from what the multi-team event (MTE) previously sought-and failed to get. Even so, it is an order of magnitude greater than the sums traditionally commanded by preseason college basketball inventory. So far, there have been no takers, with several sources saying the price being shopped far exceeds what anyone is likely to pay. It’s yet another way the tournament, which launched two years ago, has distinguished itself from its peers.
Players Era Festival: One of the premier Multiple Team Events (MTE) in college basketball takes place in Las Vegas the week of Thanksgiving. Still a relatively new tournament, the Players Era Festival brings out the modern aspect of the sport. This year’s field has expanded to 18 teams, all of which will earn $1 million for participating. Now, the goal is to earn another $1 million by winning the championship game.
Players Era is produced by And1 co-founder Seth Berger, in partnership with EverWonder Studio, the media company backed by Redbird IMI that has recently taken on production duties for LIV Golf’s telecasts. Players Era’s ties to RedBird IMI, the $10 billion investment company led by Jeff Zucker, appeared to offer-at least in theory-a financial safety net for the event’s operations. On Nov. 24, Players Era and the Big 12 announced a partnership that would guarantee eight of the league’s 16 basketball teams would participate in every Players Era event through 2030. Three weeks later, the Big 12 confirmed it was in advanced talks for a $500 million private capital deal with Collegiate Athletic Solutions, the investment vehicle backed by RedBird Capital.
To be sure, Players Era came out of the gates acting like money was no object, offering $1 million to each of the eight programs that participated in its inaugural 2024 event. Up until that point, the MTE industry considered $1-$2 million in gross revenue a success for promoters. The second Players Era was held in Las Vegas this past Thanksgiving, with each of the games broadcast on TNT Sports’ channels.
As Sportico previously reported, a number of those men’s teams have yet to receive money they had been promised, two-plus months after the event took place, and later than what was outlined in their arrangements. The NIL-specific funds are being scrutinized by the College Sports Commission for their fidelity to the House v. NCAA settlement. Multiple schools struck deals with Players Era for payments unrelated to athlete NIL or revenue-sharing including for covering travel expenses. On Dec. Winter responded by writing that it was his understanding the payments would be going out that same week. However, this apparently did not occur, as Oregon continued to follow up over the next several weeks. On Jan. 21, Kevin McDonald, the CFO of EverWonder, provided the Ducks this update: “I know that we are still working through the team participation payments this week.” He said he would follow up with the Players Era account department. Sportico previously reported that other participating schools, including UNLV and Iowa State, had not received their payments on time.
For those, the schedule has been released. Well over 12 hours of basketball will come our way to get the holiday week started. You can check out the full slate of games here, provided by Matt Norlander of CBS Sports.
- Monday, Nov. Tennessee vs.
- John R. Wooden Award - Named after former UCLA men's basketball coach John Wooden, the John R.
- Julius Erving Award - Named after former UMass great Julius "Dr.
Other Important Terms
All-American: At the end of every college basketball season, the best players in the country will be voted as All-Americans by various media outlets, such as the Associated Press. There are five All-America players per "team" and there are two or three All-America teams per outlet.
Cutting down the nets: There are four times in which you might see a college basketball team cutting down the nets, and each one comes with higher stakes. Cutting the nets off of the basket is a sign of celebration, and often the celebration of a championship. The first time during the college basketball season in which you might see a team cut down the nets is after a team wins a regular-season championship. The amount of net-cutting really picks up during conference tournaments, where you'll see conference tournament champions cut the nets after they clinch an NCAA tournament automatic bid. The practice probably started in Indiana high school basketball. In 1946, former Indiana high school coach Everett Case became the coach at North Carolina State.
Euro step: The Euro step is a deceiving offensive move by a ball-handler, who takes a long, exaggerated step in one direction, only to take another step with his other foot in the opposite direction as he tries to catch the defender off-guard with a change of direction and change of speed.
Going dancing: Since the NCAA tournament is often referred to as the Big Dance, teams that make the tournament - either through an automatic bid or an at-large bid - are often said to "go dancing." Sometimes, quite literally.
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