UConn #1, UNC | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
East | UConn | Iowa St | Illinois | |
West | UNC | Arizona | Creighton | Kansas |
South | Houston | Marquette | Kentucky | |
Midwest | Purdue | Tenn | Baylor | Duke |
After the first 3 seedlines are done, by the principles Duke chooses first based on seedlist and goes Midwest as closest geo. Kansas is next, but can't go South (Houston) or East (Iowa St) so placed West. Auburn is then choosing between East and South and would love to go South, but Kentucky is there, so they go East. And then you have to place Alabama and you get stuck because again Kentucky is in the South, so Alabama can't go anywhere. At that point you push Alabama to a 5 seed or shuffle some of the other seeds earlier.
So what the committee did was flip Creighton and Baylor on the 3 line. It's a good geo for Creighton and not that much worse for Baylor. Duke tries to go Midwest, but then next Kansas can't go anywhere else so they put Kansas in Midwest. Then Duke tries to go East, but then next again then there are 2 SEC schools and neither can go to the South. so they put Duke in the South.
UConn #1, UNC | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 |
East | UConn | Iowa St | Illinois | |
West | UNC | Arizona | Baylor | |
South | Houston | Marquette | Kentucky | Duke |
Midwest | Purdue | Tenn | Creighton | Kansas |
So then Auburn gets to choose between East and West and chooses East. Alabama defaults to West.