Another year, another verdict from the NCAA men's basketball selection committee on the 2023 field of 68. It generally hit the mark, but it also left plenty of room for nitpicking among those of us who otherwise need to get a life. Here's what it got right, and what it did not:
HIT: Kudos to the committee for working through Sunday afternoon and giving Alabama the No. 1 overall seed. This was a relatively easy call after both Kansas and Houston went down hard in their respective conference championship games. Although no real advantage is gained over the other 1-seeds — the Crimson Tide were always on a Birmingham/Louisville path — it's a big deal to sit at the very top of a bracket representing 363 Division I teams.
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MISS: No offense to Houston, which might very well be my pick to win it all, but Kansas should be at the top of the Midwest Region with a Des Moines/Kansas City path. Why have a quadrant system if we're going to ship a team out of its natural region after posting the most Quadrant 1 wins (17) ever? On the other hand, I hear Las Vegas is pretty excited about hosting its first NCAA tournament, and the Jayhawks' huge fan base figures to have a great time.
HIT: The committee got at least 67 of the teams right. It couldn't have been easy leaving out the likes of Oklahoma State, Clemson and Vanderbilt after all three posted big wins down the stretch — not to mention North Carolina, which got more debate time than any mediocre team in history. We'll know more after further study, but at first glance it appears the various selection criteria were applied consistently across the board.
MISS: I need to spend more time on the exclusion of
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