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Um, so where did the top seed play last year? You mean they couldn't find any place closer than Lincoln for the Huskies to go to?
The Committee sticks to a rule one year, and half the fans cry it's an atrocity because the brackets aren't balanced. So then they say that well maybe the complainers have a point and next year we'll try to balance the brackets, so then the gripers are out complaining that the teams aren't going to the nearest site, and screw the competitiveness level.
Not accurate. The G-curve, or siting teams by nearness to the regions has been a consistent principle for at least 15 years, with the exception of last year when there were no regional sites. Remember, they put the S16 and E8 up for bid. Or do you think South Bend, Louisville, Lincoln and Stanford represented the 4 regions of the country. For the last 10 years predicting the regional assignment of the top 8 teams was simple as long as you knew their rankings. Until this year.
And as long as I'm being conspiratorial, here's a beaut. ESPN had Tenn in Albany until last week, when suddenly Creme had them in Spokane. ESPN suddenly started talking about how a Tenn-UConn rivalry was old news. The phrase used by Lobo was something like "that train left the station". My thinking is that that was a pile of BS. ESPN knows damn well that a Tenn-UConn game would be the biggest game around, but they know it would be a mismatch this year and if UConn blew the LV's out by 30+ the luster of the rivalry would disappear. But next year, when ESPN darling Diamond is playing, they can hype a game to the hilt. So ESPN made it clear to the NCAA, to whom they pay billions for basketball rights, that it would be better if they didn't send the LV's where the G-curve dictated they go.
Just my opinion of course.
