A Hindsight Look At the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament So Far

After watching the NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament so far, and even before the tournament started, I was extremely confused at this years' seedings. And after what's occurred the last few days, I guess I had reason to feel that way.

I don't know if the Tournament Committee knew what they were doing this year when they set up this years competition. For one thing, how did New Mexico get a 3 seed? Wisconsin a 4? And Washington an 11 after winning the Pac 10 tournament? We're even seeing now that Cornell is clearly better than a 12 seed.

First, we'll talk about New Mexico. There's no way that team should have been seeded that high. For one thing, they're in one of the weaker conferences. Second, they lost in the semifinals of their conference tournament. Third, the only big non-conference win worth mentioning for them is Texas A&M. Otherwise, they played nobody and even lost to Oral Roberts. Not the makings of a 3 seed if you ask me.

Next is Wisconsin. My first question after seeing the seeding was, "How can you give them a 4 seed when they didn't even win a single game in the Big Ten Conference Tournament?" Sure they had big wins versus Duke, Maryland, Purdue, and Michigan State at home (I'm not counting the Evan Turnerless Buckeyes as a big win since they're almost nothing without him), but can you really give a 4 seed to a team that finished 7-4 in their last 11 right before the tournament? Sounds more like about a 6 to me.

Lastly, let's take a look at Washington. Sure they had a really slow start in conference play, but after starting 3-5 in the Pac 10, they finished 11-2 in the conference and went on to win the Pac 10 Championship. They were one of the hotter teams in college basketball and I just think it's a bad idea to give such a low seed to a team belonging to a major conference. And don't forget they beat Texas A&M in non-conference play. It just wasn't a fair matchup for New Mexico.

I don't blame the Tournament Committee for giving Cornell a 12 seed due to the Ivy League's past in the tournament, but now it looks like they're clearly a better team than their seed entails because they aren't just winning, they're mopping up.

So so far, it just looks like a really bad year as far as seeding goes. With the exception of Wisconsin losing, I think it's been a great tournament and one of the more exciting ones in the past few years. All I'm going to ask is that the committee put some more thought into where they place the teams they feel are qualified to make the tournament.