FINAL FOUR PICKS
Peter
Hockaday
Pittsburgh
Arizona
Syracuse
Florida
Florida
Arizona
Hager
Kentucky
Jesse
Thomas
Midwest
Mindi
Rice
Oregon
Kansas
St. Joseph’s
St. Joseph’s
Kansas
Michael
Kleckner
Adeiie
Lennox
So. Illinois
Duke
Louisville
Texas
Duke
Louisville
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Big 12, SEC reign in bracket
David Teel
Daily PresS (KRT)
GREENSBORO, N.G. — The
NCAA Tournament bracket unveiled
Sunday confirms this Season’s pow
er base and rewards three regular
season champions from mid-major
conferences.
The 65-team field includes six
teams each from the Big 12 and
Southeastern Conference, widely ac
knowledged as the nation’s strongest.
Five Pacific-10 Conference teams and
four Adantic Coast Conference teams
qualified, with North Carolina State
earning a bid by advancing to the
league tournament final.
Two Big 12 teams, Texas and Okla
homa, received No. 1 regional seeds in
the South and East, respectively. The
other No. Is are Arizona in the West
and Kentucky in the Midwest.
But the 10-member selection
committee did more than cater to
the major conferences that hog the
airwaves. Gonzaga, Southern Illinois
and Butler, regular-season champs of
the West Coast, Missouri Valley and
Horizon, respectively, received at
large bids after losing in the finals of
their league tournaments.
“It was a sleepless night,” South
ern Illinois coach Bruce Weber said
of awaiting Selection Sunday.
With 25 victories, Butler was
among last season’s most debated ex
clusions, but selection committee
chairman Jim Livengood said history
played no part in the Bulldogs’ bid.
“There might be make-up calls in
other sports,” said Livengood, the ath
letic director at Arizona. “But there’s
no make-up calls with the committee.
We start completely fresh.”
The panel certainly did no favors
for Livengood’s school. Arizona faces
a daunting West bracket that fea
tures Big 12 regular-season champi
on Kansas, ACC tournament champ
Duke and Big Ten tournament win
ner Illinois as seeds 2-4.
Also, if form holds, Arizona and
Ron Jenkins KRT
Oklahoma's Hollis Price goes to his knees to pass against Missouri in the Big 12
Tournament title game Sunday. The Sooners won 49-47, and are a No. 1 seed.
Kentucky, the top teams in every poll,
will meet in the Final Four semifinals
instead of the national title game.
Livengood said Kentucky was
placed in the Midwest rather than
the South because Minneapolis, site
of the Midwest semifinals and final,
is closer to Lexington, Ky., than San
Antonio, the South venue.
“The committee would do a great
injustice if we tried to predict
ahead,” Livengood added.
Among the teams that might term
their absence from the field unjust:
Boston College and Seton Hall. Both
closed strongly and finished 10-6 in
the Big East. Meanwhile, Alabama
received a bid, despite a 7-9 SEC fin
ish, a quarterfinal exit from the con
ference tournament, and 11 losses in
its last 19 games.
Livengood attributed the Crimson
Tide’s inclusion to its 10-1 record
against a non-conference schedule
that included Oklahoma and Xavier,
and that ranks 34th on the Rating
Percentage Index produced by col
legerpi.com. Among the 34 at-large
teams, Alabama is the only one with
a losing conference record.
© 2003, Daily Press (Newport News, Va.).
Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune
Information Services.
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