It is really tough to mess up Selection Sunday. The NCAA selection process makes sure they can not. The process is a series of votes from the committee where they first pick their top remaining teams to see who they will rank next, and then each person votes on those teams. It avoids a situation like what the Lunatic would want where he loves the mid-major teams and so he would rank them all better if he could. But in the committee room, all 12 of them have to do that – one person’s vote can certainly give a team a chance but the others have to agree.

If anything, I have to thank the committee. They gave my Boilermakers a 4 seed (ranked 14th on their curve) and then sent them to the Indianapolis regional. I could not have asked for more. If the Lunatic thinks about this, he realizes how wrong this is. They ranked us ahead of Maryland and Michigan thanks to our non-conference schedule, which was generous based on our February swoon.

I love the fact that they learned a little from last year. Watching the Big East and ACC get so few teams seemed unfair – and it looked like it could have happened again. But the committee basically said that they were going to take two 13-7 teams from the power conferences before looking at the 10-10 teams from the Big 10 and Big 12.

My only real criticism is that they took 14 SEC schools. They could have left out Oklahoma and Texas (the two teams that went 6-12 in the SEC) and included West Virginia and Indiana (the 10-10 teams from the Big 10 and Big 12). Or maybe even they consider SMU or Villanova.

You could try to make the argument that with 7 teams in the Sweet 16, the SEC deserved 14 teams. But that simply isn’t true. 5 of those teams were top 3 seeds – they were supposed to advance. Just because a league has 5 of the best 12 schools in the country doesn’t mean that we have to invite the entire conference to play in the tournament.

The only thing that actually made this possible was the fact that the bid stealers never showed up. Teams like VCU, Memphis, Drake and UC San Diego all won their conference tournaments. And the power conferences were won by ranked teams. This let the committee go deeper than they normally do.

But to be fair, the SEC got 14 teams in based on the statistics that the committee was using. It raises a question of whether those statistics are the correct ones to use, but it was still accurate based on those numbers.

The NET looks at performance and margin of victory – which is a change from the old RPI. But it is important to realize that the change played a role in 14 teams making it. The RPI for Oklahoma was 61st, Arkansas was 65th, and Texas was 88th. That is correct, if we were still using RPI, Texas would have been the team with the worst ever RPI to get an at-large bid. Or more realistically, the committee would have picked someone else.

I do like to look at the teams that we didn’t match on my bracketology. Remember that is not necessarily my ranking – but where I thought the committee would rank them. But that method can’t help but have some of my bias in it.

Teams I missed by more than 1 seed.

• Louisville (Lunatic – 4, NCAA – 8) – everyone called this out and everyone missed this. With Creighton beating them, you could believe that they were not worthy of a better bid. But would the Cardinals have beat a team like UC-San Diego if they got placed as a 5 seed like they probably should have been.
• Oklahoma (Lunatic – 11, NCAA – 9) – and the Sooners lost to Connecticut (also a little unfair since maybe the Huskies should have been better than an 8 seed).

Teams that I thought were 1 seed better than the committee (went 8-5, committee expectations said they should have been 4-6)

• Maryland – they dominated Grand Canyon and then escaped against Colorado State.
• Clemson – whoops, I totally got that one wrong.
• BYU – OK – I redeemed myself. The Cougars look really good getting to the Sweet 16.
• Creighton – They went and beat Louisville, the team I thought was also mis-seeded.
• New Mexico – They had a big upset over Marquette and played well against Michigan State.
• North Carolina – About where they should have been. They won the play-in game only to lose to Ole Miss. I consider this says I was right, they were probably better than being in the play-in game, but not better enough to be considered a favorite in a 1st round game.
• Colorado State – Was 1 shot away from being the only 12 seed this year to make the Sweet 16.

Teams the Committee Seeded Better (They went 9-6, Lunatic seed expectations would be 10-7):

• Wisconsin – They probably wish that they had been a 4 seed and didn’t draw BYU.
• Purdue – They made the Sweet 16 against High Point and McNeese
• Arizona – They made the Sweet 16 against Akron and Oregon
• Memphis – They got upset by Colorado State
• Oregon – They did what was expected – beat Liberty but lost to Arizona
• Ole Miss – They made the Sweet 16 impressively against Iowa State.
• Kansas – They got upset by Arkansas.
• Mississippi State – They got upset by Baylor
• Drake – They had a nice victory over Missouri before losing to Texas Tech.

So, not sure what to make about that. Basically the teams that I thought were better than what they seeded then won more than what their seed expectation is. And the teams that I thought should have been seeded worse still did a little better than my seed expectations would have them. Although that is a mixed result.

While Purdue, Arizona and Ole Miss made the Sweet 16 when they were not expected, Memphis, Kansas and Wisconsin lost before they were supposed to.

I guess that is a long and complicated way of coming to the conclusion that the Selection Committee got it right. The teams they put in the top 8 basically won their games. We could argue if they got the last 4-5 teams right, but truthfully, those teams wouldn’t have likely won either. So, I have to say, the selection committee did pretty good.