still factor into the committee’s thinking — 20 wins,
Man, I just don’t believe this for a second. Why does the committee care one iota about an arbitrary marker like that? They’ll be plenty of 20 win teams that don’t make the tournament.
I also don’t buy into that at all.
Yeah, I get that it’s something the community has said they’ve moved away from, and believe me I hope I’m wrong about this, but I still feel that overall record is something they look at (it’s the first thing on the teamsheet) and 20 wins vs. 19 is just a strong, noticeable difference that I’m not convinced humans can completely ignore. The committee will never admit this, of course, and I don’t use 20 wins explicitly (it’s winning percentage that’s tied to the 20 win target), but I believe it gives teams a little bump if they’re above this line.