NCAA – NCAA Selection Committee Announces its 68-team draw

It’s always a mess, and it has always been controversial. Every year, the NCAA Selection Committee has to decide who makes it into the NCAA Tournament and who has to conform itself with playing for the NIT and for other minor college basketball postseason tournaments. The funny thing is that as of press time, and perhaps for the next couple of years, it will still be evident that the Committee has yet to come up with a systematic and less biased approach for choosing which teams make it, and which teams don’t.

There are three more teams in this year’s edition of March Madness. That should had made things a bit easier for the Selection Committee (SC from now on), but as soon as the list of the 68 teams was posted on Sunday, it was evident that once again, it seemed as if they had messed it up. As per usual, the Big East would take again most of the spots in the opening bracket. And yet for a record-breaking figure, this edition will have 11 teams from the Big East, including Pittsburgh, who has been given the No.1 seed in the Southeast despite not winning a single game in the conference tourney.

The Ohio State Buckeyes which finished the season with a 32-2 record coming from the Big Ten were picked as the top seed overall. The Kansas Jayhawks with a 32-2 season and a brilliant performance at the Big 12 was seeded second. The defending champions, the Duke Blue Devils squeezed by another Big East team to clinch the third seed while Notre Dame was the fourth and final top seed. Led by one of the country’s best guards, Nolan Smith, the Blue Devils (30-4) not only defeated their conference archrival, the UNC Tar Heels for the ACC postseason tournament, they are also trying to become the first team since Florida in 2006-07 to repeat as national champions.

Now, let’s take a look at the controversial teams that either managed to get invited to the big dance, or that somehow were left out without much of a logical explanation. Unless, of course, you consider that the argument