[Cactus Jack]

I believe Louisville was ahead of Duke at halftime and had a bad 2nd half. They were without Reyne Smith as well who is very good. No justification for the seeding but playing at Rupp is huge so it's ok. Clemson a 5 seed and Louisville beat them twice smh. Louisville lost 2 games in the last 3 months. Crazy.

Louisville was up on Duke but the 2nd half was almost as bad as what Alabama did to Kentucky.

A number 8 seed for a team with such a good record jumps out at you, but look at the #7s ahead of them.

Marquette was a Top 10 team for much of the year and beat: Maryland, Purdue, Wisconsin, Creighton, Georgia, and Xavier x3,
Kansas beat: Duke, Michigan State, Iowa State, Arizona, and North Carolina
UCLA beat: Michigan State, Arizona, Oregon x2, Wisconsin, and Gonzaga

Louisville beat: Clemson x2 and North Carolina. Those are their wins over teams that made the field. Two of their other big wins, West Virginia and Indiana, were over teams that really crapped the bed down the stretch. Had even one of those two performed well enough to make the field, we might be having a different conversation.

St. Mary's was the school seeded ahead of Louisville that they could complain most about, but the Gaels were in the East and will open against Vanderbilt in Rupp Arena. I'd expect the crowd to be much more pro-Vandy and would think St. Mary's would trade seeds with Louisville if it meant they could be in the West Region. Also, look at the #10 line-- Arkansas, Vanderbilt, New Mexico, and Utah State are no slouches. Utah State is the name no one recognizes, but could wind up being the best team of the bunch. I don't see much difference between that group and the #9s-- Georgia, Oklahoma, Creighton, and Baylor. Depending on the make-up of my team, I'd probably rather play the #9s than the #10s, or at least could think of 9-10 pairings where the 10 would be favored.

If nothing else, the committee seemed pretty consistent this year. Auburn lost three of their last four but was still the #1 overall seed; Florida was a lot of people's pick for the #1 overall but their non-conference schedule cooked them (best win was UNC). Another of the best examples of this is that Kentucky didn't look great late, but they had a lot of wins over some really good teams and got rewarded. Same for a St. John's team that had some not-so great looking losses (Georgia, Baylor, and Villanova), but was still able to get a #2 seed because they had 7 wins over tournament teams.

Clemson was seeded ahead of Louisville because they beat Duke and Kentucky. A little of their success last year might have been factored in too (whether it should have been or not).