BYU AD Holmoe to stay on selection committee for another year

Aug 3, 2017 - 12:11 AM The 10-person committee that selects and seeds the teams for the NCAA basketball tournament underwent some recent changes to avoid having too much inexperience, and the bottom line is that BYU athletic director Tom Holmoe will remain on the committee for another year.

Two months ago, former New Mexico athletic director Paul Krebs unexpectedly left the committee, but former Richmond athletic director Keith Gill was not appointed to the committee as anticipated, CBSSports.com reported Wednesday.

Gill resigned from Richmond in May, but joined the Atlantic 10 as the executive associate commissioner in an attempt to retain his spot with the selection committee.

Mountain West commissioner Craig Thompson, who had not served on the selection committee since 2000, was added to the committee to replace Krebs. Northwestern athletic director Jim Phillips and Southland Conference commissioner Tom Burnett will be committee members for the first time.

The committee decided it wanted no more than three new members, so it turned to Holmoe, who was scheduled to leave the committee on Aug. 31 after serving for four years.

"Tom Holmoe has been a valuable member of the committee for the past three years and I was delighted to share with him and his colleagues the news that his term will be extended by a year," Dan Gavitt, the NCAA's senior vice president of basketball, said in a statement. "If there has been one common theme with this committee that I've heard over the past five years, it's that the first year with the group can be a bit overwhelming. ... Having Tom back for another year prevents us from having essentially four new members for the upcoming season, and we think that's important for the committee to have the most balanced experience possible."

The committee has added some changes to its selection and seeding processes, so experience became an important factor.

Creighton athletic director Bruce Rasmussen will chair the committee in 2017-18.