As always, John Calapari represents the University of Kentucky with class and grace with the following quotes about his team’s seeding, location and game times.

“I didn’t see all of it,” he said of the NCAA Selection Show, “but you guys … is ours like the toughest again? Like, by far? Is anyone in here surprised? We’re not playing on Thursday, right? Because we just got done playing today. We’re playing on Thursday? Oh, but we’re close?”

“Anchorage or Boise?” he quipped. “It is what it is. They’re not going to make it easy for us, and they can all say, ‘This is all by the numbers and all that.’ OK.”

“They’re a good team,” Cal said of Arizona. “I’m surprised they were a 4. How did they drop to a 4? Didn’t they win their tournament? Did Davidson win their tournament? Did Virginia win their tournament? Oh, wow. Did we win our tournament? Wow.”

“I had to ask my guys, ‘How many of you know what state Boise is in?’”

Lets remember that Kentucky was ranked 27th in the AP poll going into the SEC tournament and ended up getting ranked 17th by the committee.  By the way, if the bracketologists of the Bracket Matrix made the bracket, Kentucky would have been the 3rd 5 seed instead of the 1st one.  But of course Cal thought his team should have been ranked higher than that, and that the Committee was out to get him.

He is complaining about having to play on Thursday – which would mean that they would have to play 5 games in 8 days to get to the Sweet 16.   Well – the Selection Committee didn’t decide to have the SEC Championship on Sunday.  His conference did.  Of course, he fails to mention that his team’s opponent Davidson is in the same boat of having to play 5 games in 8 days to get to the Sweet 16.

Also, he would be playing in Boise even if he was a 4 seed.  He can’t be delusional enough that he would have been ranked a 3 seed (or maybe he could).  The top 4 protected seeds are sent to their most favorable geographic location available, starting with the 1 seeds.  By the time we got to the last two 4 seeds available, all that was left was San Diego and Boise – which by the way, both were scheduled to be Thursday / Saturday sites.  They were sent to Boise since if they win, it would send them to Atlanta (a more favorable Sweet 16 location).

He is complaining that all of his upcoming opponents won their conference tournament making the draw tough.  Well, guess what Coach Cal.  32 teams won their conference tournament.  You had pretty good odds of eventually having to play one of them.

And then to continue his sarcasm, he insults the intelligence of his players suggesting that some of them might not know where Boise, Idaho is.  I guess it is naive of me to believe that college students know that much geography – or maybe he is implying that his athletes aren’t really college students….

There are teams that have rights to complain about their seeds.  We can get back into USC not getting a bid.  How about the fact that the UCLA team that not only beat the 4 seed Kentucky is drawn up against, but also beat the Wildcats on a neutral court ended up in the play-in game that is going on tonight.  Oh – but it must be OK for the Bruins to have to win 3 games in 5 days after playing Thursday and Friday in their conference tournament….Not to mention have to travel to Dayton from Los Angeles before heading potentially to Dallas, Texas and then if lucky enough to survive the weekend, Boston.

You are a Hall of Fame coach – how about acting like one and just talk about how excited you are to play in the NCAA Championship.