Location, Location, Location: Creative Seeding is the Mark of This Year's Tournament

Teams in this year's NCAA Men's College Basketball Tournament need to look at not just their seeding to see how the selection committee viewed their performance this year, they need to look at where they will play their first and second round games.

The committee, this season, not only gave better teams an edge by seeding, but by where they are playing.

Memphis: The Tigers were a legitimate No. 1 seed candidate but the committee thought Connecticut out of the nations best conference, the Big East, deserved the top seed. But they did give Memphis basically an 1a seeding by putting them as the No. 2 in UCONN's bracket and by giving them their first and second round games in Kansas City. Memphis will also have to travel less for the regionals in Arizona than Connecticut will.

Villanova: North Carolina and Duke will both be playing opening round games in Greensboro but no one will have home cooking like the Wildcats. Nova will play its first round games in Philadelphia (the city where the school is located). While the Wildcats could have been a two seed, the committee made them a 3 and made it so they could sleep in their own beds the night before the game.

Utah and Arizona: The whole premise of the pod system was so teams could play closer to home and more of their fans could attend. So when Utah and Arizona face off in a 5-12 matchup in Miami, the committee threw that idea out the window. Arizona was tabbed as many as the last team in the tournament and the committee may be reinforcing that idea by sending them across the country to play another west coast foe.

North Dakota State: The Bison made the tournament in their first season of Division 1 eligibility and the selection committee gave them a welcome gift in a game close to home. The North Dakota State fans will have to travel one state over for the first round match up in Minneapolis, while their first round opponent will have to travel from Kansas. The Jayhawks will probably not complain about the geographic discrepancy though.

 20 WIN TEAMS SHOULD BE IN THE TOURNAMENT

The great thing about the NCAA tournament is that the brackets come out on Sunday, we complain about who did not get in until Thursday and once the games start, the arguments stop.

So in that spirit, I think it is wrong that two 19 win teams made the tournament while two 26 win teams are sitting out. Both Wisconsin and Arizona come into the tournament netting 19 wins, while St. Marys and Creighton each tallied 26 victories. 

If the committee is looking at body of work, how could they leave out these two teams and give the bids to schools who did not even garner a win in their respective conference tournaments.