So every year there is a bunch of whining about the selection committee and who gets left out of the tournament. I do it as well. Everyone can second guess decisions – and make statements about how they think a certain team belongs and a certain team does not.

So, lets look at two of the major complaints. 1) There were 7 teams with 13 or more losses in the tournament – which is a record number of teams this bad. My only argument would be is that only one of those teams was in the play-in games – I question the seeding more than anything else. But here is the reality.

• Marquette(14 losses) – destroyed regular      season Atlantic 10 champion Xavier
• Michigan(13 losses) – destroyedTennessee
• Tennessee (14 losses) – lost pretty badly to      Michigan, but I still have a hard time saying that a team with 7 Top 50      wins didn’t belong.
• Penn St(14 losses) – lost on a buzzer beater byTemple
• Illinois(13 losses) – destroyed UNLV
• USC (14 losses) – lost to a VCU team that turned      around and beat up onGeorgetown
• Michigan St(14 losses) – lost by 2 points      to a very good UCLA team

All in all, considering that 3 of them are still playing, and 2 of these teams lost by just a basket, it looks like these teams all supported the Selection Committee’s decision that they were perfectly capable of playing at the level of the other tournament teams.

2) How can they choose VCU and UAB? Well, since VCU has now won two games, and UAB was a regular season champion, you can’t fault these decisions either.

At the end of the day, the Selection Committee creates a great tournament. There are some questionable decisions – likeRichmondas a 12 seed – that I feel was laziness due to the Sunday championship. And I still would have hadAlabama, VT, andColoradoin. But it is hard to say the Selection Committee was outright wrong – every year, it is a great tournament.