SEC is having a good postseason.

[mathguy]

We are in the "Eh 8" of the NIT.

Alabama is the overall #1 seed and survived their 16 seed (which can't be said of all #1 seeds this year).
UT is in the Sweet 16 after making Duke look like crap.
UK is in the round of 32 for the first time in about 4 years.
Missouri looks like they're about to bow out at 1-1, which is what their seed would have predicted (Go Princeton by the Way!)
Arkansas is in the Sweet 16 after beating Kansas.
And as I write this, Auburn is up 10 on #1 Houston at halftime.

Only Miss St and Texas A&M flamed out ... and all of us on this board knew Miss St didn't belong in the field, and A&M had to play the suddenly scorching hot Penn State squad that kept beating people in the Big 10 Tourney.

Does make the SEC look good ... and makes our 11-7 conference record look even better...

[geeznotagain]

Is it unusual for there to be 2 different regionals in the same location. I'm watching Auburn/Houston, playing in Birmingham, in the Midwest Regional. Later tonight, in the same arena in Birmingham, Alabama is playing, in the South region. I realize they won't play each other (since they are in different regionals),but is this unusual? Two different regionals, 2 #1 seeds (Alabama and Houston), playing in the same location.

[commadore]

I have talked to both Alabama and Auburn fans here and no one has ever heard of it nor can they explain it. Just really seems odd to me.

[indysog03]

Is it unusual for there to be 2 different regionals in the same location. I'm watching Auburn/Houston, playing in Birmingham, in the Midwest Regional. Later tonight, in the same arena in Birmingham, Alabama is playing, in the South region. I realize they won't play each other (since they are in different regionals),but is this unusual? Two different regionals, 2 #1 seeds (Alabama and Houston), playing in the same location.

Nah, not unusual - a while back (10-15 years…?), they changed most early locations host two “pods” of four teams regardless of region or geographic location, with each pod producing a Sweet Sixteen team.

That said, there’s no reason at all for Auburn to be playing in Birmingham as 9 seed. That was a ridiculous oversight by the committee.

[MrMemorial]

How did Mizzou do tonight??

Asking for a friend.

[mathguy]

That said, there’s no reason at all for Auburn to be playing in Birmingham as 9 seed. That was a ridiculous oversight by the committee.

Things like this have happened before two. The select the location for the pod based on the highest seed, and the other 3 teams in the pod follow. The committee makes no attempt to worry about what other teams are in the pod and their geographical location. So this is not the first time a lower seed has essentially had a home court advantage in an early round.

Maybe the committee should consider that ... but honestly they have so many restrictions on the bracket that may just be one step too far. I know, for example, one of their rules is that (unless a conference has more than 8 teams invited) they aren't supposed to put teams from the same conference in the same half of a region. But now since the SEC has exactly 8 teams in the tourney, if they moved Auburn to another region to avoid them playing in Birmingham, then they need to move a different SEC team back over. And if there happened to be a part of the bracket without an SEC team, they'd had to worry about what conference they were sending back...

For all the grief we give the committee, getting the right teams might actually be the easiest task they face.