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 Monday, February 28
Difficulty lies in seeding the 64
 
By Andy Katz
ESPN.com

 Asking the NCAA men's basketball tournament's selection committee chair if this is the hardest season to pick the field of 64 seems to be a rite of passage for the media in late February.

The answer is usually yes. It doesn't have to be.

The trend is tiresome and it doesn't seem to end. Why should this year be any different than the past? The NCAA selection committee will have a harder time seeding the 64 teams, especially seeds five through 10, than it will selecting the 35 at-large berths.

Double trouble?
Has the recent parity in college basketball made it easier to get into the tournament? Here's a list of how many teams with double-digit losses have made the field as at-large entries over the last 10 years:
Year Teams
1999 15
1998 10
1997 10
1996 14
1995 8
1994 13
1993 11
1992 11
1991 13
1990 9

"Some years the selection process has been very difficult, some years not as difficult," said selection committee chair Craig Thompson, answering with a non-answer. "It's the seeding that's difficult once you get the 35 at-large berths and the 29 automatics down. We're going to have a couple of teams with a few losses, more with four or five and even more with six or seven. They'll all look very similar. The seeding process is where we'll spend a lot of time."

The selection committee could arrive in Indianapolis as late as next Friday, instead of Wednesday, and have the roster of teams almost entirely filled out. Check the standings -- more than likely there will be no bubble teams in the SEC, ACC, Big 12, Big 10 and by week's end, possibly the Pac-10 and Atlantic 10.

The Big East and Conference USA will likely need conference tournaments to complete the separation between NCAA and NIT teams. The WAC and Mountain West need their conference tournaments to determine how many at-large teams they'll have this season (neither has an automatic berth this year).

But the rest of the drama will be for seeding in the NCAA Tournament. Even the mid to low-major conferences have lost their appeal as the season wore on. The Mid-American Conference has two teams that could get bids on their own (Kent and Bowling Green). The West Coast Conference may have lost its two locks (Pepperdine and Gonzaga) with recent losses. The Missouri Valley Conference probably can't get multiple teams in the tournament any more, either. And Utah State is probably the only potential at-large team out West if the Aggies don't win the Big West tournament.

The rest of the conferences will be relegated to must-win situations during their conference tournaments. That means deserving teams like Hofstra, Maine, Siena and Butler can't afford to slip up during Championship Week.

Parity has only made the selection committee's job harder when it comes to seeding, not selecting. Yet, every year the same questions are asked if this is the hardest. And, every year, the same thing happens: teams play their way out and others play their way into the field of 64.

Can anyone argue with Wake Forest or N.C. State not making the tournament after their second-half slides? What about Notre Dame? The Irish have no one to blame but themselves after losing to Providence and Miami last week. If Missouri or Vanderbilt don't make it, they can both point to late-season losing streaks.

USC? Check the Trojans' last 10 games. No one really gets shafted anymore. The selection committee is actually on a tear of late, with the only exception being last season's addition of UAB (and possibly RPI-strapped New Mexico). But last year was a case where the committee needed to find another team or two to fill out the bracket. Why? It was hard to find 34 deserving at-large teams.

The only high-major team with a gaudy record that didn't make the field of 64 recently was the 1992 UNLV team, but that was because the 26-2 Runnin' Rebels were ineligible for postseason play. The next high-major team with the most wins not to make the tournament was 25-9 New Mexico in 1987.

Coaches in elite leagues like the ACC and the Big East can squawk about not getting enough bids, but the majority of times the teams that didn't make it didn't earn it. Poor conference records, regardless of conference affiliation, should indicate something about a team.

Wisconsin may be the perfect example this season. The Badgers played one of the toughest non-conference schedules. They beat Texas, Temple and Missouri. But the Badgers have struggled in the Big Ten, so much that a sixth or seventh-place finish makes it hard to deserve an at-large berth.

So, don't worry about picking the field. You'll probably be pretty close. But if you really want a chore, attempt to seed all 64 teams. Master that and you've really got the bracketology down.

Andy Katz is a senior writer at ESPN.com.

 



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