Samford Vice President for Intercollegiate Athletics Martin Newton sits down with ADU’s Tai M. Brown at the 2025 NCAA Convention to offer insight into developing a data-informed decision-making process; as a member of the Division I Men’s Basketball Committee, Newton has a front-row seat in one of the most high-profile decision-making processes – selecting the field for the Division I Men’s Basketball Tournament. Newton muses on the importance of respecting the past – and the way the Selection Committee has always developed the field – while making tweaks to accommodate for new technologies and metrics. Newton: “If everything’s based on analytics, you really don’t need a committee.”
Similarly, Newton and Brown discuss how senior leaders balance decision-making for their departments, relying on both data or facts as well as feelings – as Newton did in hiring former Bulldogs Men’s Basketball Head Coach Bucky McMillan before McMillan had experience coaching at the Division I level. Newton: “If you looked at the facts, that was a crazy decision – probably a bad decision. But my gut feeling was, ‘This is the guy.’ And then we went to the NCAA Tournament last year.”
The conversation is indexed below for efficient viewing (click the time stamp to jump to a specific question/topic).