Committee's Decisions Came Down to Final Buzzer

Conference Tourneys Had a Large Effect On Who's In, Who's Out

A wild Sunday of high-stakes matchups and unlikely results created a maddening predicament for the NCAA tournament selection committee, which did not finish the 65-team bracket until 5:40 p.m., just 20 minutes before CBS started its television broadcast to unveil the field.

"We had eight different contingency plans," said Tom O'Connor, the George Mason athletic director and chairman of the tournament selection committee. "All five of the games played today had an impact on the bracket."

Tennessee's loss to Arkansas on Saturday in the SEC tournament created the likelihood that the winner of Sunday's Big 12 tournament final between Kansas and Texas would take the Volunteers' spot as a No. 1 seed. O'Connor said that the Jayhawks' victory over the Longhorns did enable them to rise to the top seed in the Midwest Region.

The three other No. 1 seeds were more certain because each won their respective conference tournaments and had demonstrated dominance over the course of the season. North Carolina, the tournament's overall No. 1 seed, will play in the East Region, Memphis is the top seed in the South Region and UCLA is the top seed in the West Region.

The other drama that emerged yesterday involved Georgia, a team that otherwise would not have made the NCAA tournament, winning the SEC tournament to claim the conference's automatic berth. Because the conference also sent five other teams to the NCAAs, the unexpected victory by Georgia, a team that won only four conference games during the regular season, took away an at-large berth from a school.

Had Illinois beaten Wisconsin in the Big Ten tournament final, another spot would have been taken away from a team competing for one of the final few at-large berths. O'Connor declined to reveal which team got bumped with Georgia's victory, but the pool of teams that barely missed the cut likely included Virginia Tech, Ohio State, Illinois State and Arizona State.

The selection committee aims to select the 34 "best" at-large teams, not necessarily the most deserving. Committee members weigh everything from nonconference strength of schedule to victories against teams rated 200 or worse as they evaluate a school's entire body of work over the course of the season.

The selection of Arizona has generated considerable debate. Arizona State was not selected even though the Sun Devils had a better conference record than the Wildcats, who were 8-10 in Pacific-10 Conference play, and the Sun Devils had swept them during the regular season.

O'Connor noted that Arizona (19-14) had struggled when not at full strength because of injuries to key players such as guards Nic Wise and Jerryd Bayless. He also pinpointed Arizona State's nonconference strength of schedule (which ranked 294th) and said Arizona State would have had the worst Ratings Percentage Index ranking (83rd) of any team ever to earn an at-large berth.

Illinois State was left out even though it won 23 games against Division I competition and had reached the Missouri Valley Conference tournament final. O'Connor said the 30-point loss to Drake in the Missouri Valley final represented only one game. A larger problem was the four losses to teams ranked worse than 100 in the RPI.

Ohio State was excluded despite beating two top 50 schools, Purdue and Michigan State, in March.

"Their road record really hurt them," O'Connor said. "They only had one road win [Cleveland State] against the top 100."