I am not sure that I am going to go into a detailed rambling on the Selection Committee – that might have to come another day. But all in all, I am pretty happy.

And part of that is because of the teams that I missed on. As I picked my bracket this afternoon, and nervously started realizing that I was running out of time because I couldn’t choose between the final teams, one of the decisions I agonized on was between UCLA and Mississippi. I actually at first had UCLA in the field. And then I thought to myself – that isn’t what the collection committee does. They normally like teams that have beaten more top 50-60 teams. So, at the last minute, I changed my answer to Mississippi and moved on to seeding the rest of the field. At some point, I might have to break down those profiles, but not this second.

The other team I missed on was Drake. Drake is the classic team that goes 24-4 in a mid-major conference, loses in their conference final to an equally talented team (in this case, #8 seed Loyola-Chicago), and then gets excluded from the tournament because they don’t have enough wins against tournament level teams. Drake went 1-2 against Loyola-Chicago. And then played no other teams in the at-large / bubble consideration. They did go 5-0 against Indiana State and Missouri State – which happened to be Tier 2 wins. They also had 2 losses against tier 3 teams (on the road at Valparaiso and Bradley).

Lets face it, history says that team doesn’t make it. Instead of the 24-4 team that won against almost everyone they faced, the 15-11 team from Big 10 or ACC gets in instead.

To be honest, I was worried about Wichita State and Utah State as well – I could have seen all those spots going to middle of the road teams from the top 6 conferences.

I will happily be wrong on my bracketology when an incredibly good mid-major team gets invited instead of the major conference team I picked. It might have made me wrong, but I do think that it is better for college basketball.