Committee gets a lot right, but one error glaring

East Rutherford | Atlanta | St. Louis | Phoenix

The first announcement of the NCAA Tournament Selection Sunday show revealed the selection committee's most egregious mistake.

Breaking from NCAA Tournament tradition -- and this was not the mistake -- the committee ranked the four No. 1 seeds from top to bottom. That seeding tactic encourages a BCS-like meeting of the country's best two teams in the championship game. Which is good.

Gerald Fitch, Erik Daniels and Cliff Hawkins won their SEC title in Atlanta and deserved to be heading back there.(AP)

Another reason for seeding the No. 1 seeds was to make sure the selection committee rewarded the best team in the country even more than it rewarded the second-best team, which would be rewarded more than the third-best team, and so on. Also good.

But here's where the selection committee made its mistake:

Thanks to its steamroller job in the SEC Tournament, Kentucky was awarded the No. 1 overall seed but was sent to the St. Louis region and not Atlanta -- dubbed Cat-lanta this weekend as the Blue Mist turned the Georgia Dome into Rupp South. The Wildcats were given nearby Dayton for the first two rounds, but they'd prefer the Atlanta Region to St. Louis.

Duke, considered the second-best No. 1 seed, was treated to more favorable geography. The Blue Devils' first-round games will be 20 miles down Interstate 40 in Raleigh, which Duke hopes to use as a springboard to Atlanta.

On the other hand, Duke was given the toughest of the four brackets, featuring a dangerous potential second-round match-up with ninth-seeded Arizona -- and Mississippi State and Texas lurking as the second and third seeds.

In descending order, the final two No. 1 seeds are Stanford in the Phoenix region and Saint Joseph's in East Rutherford. Despite being the third-rated No. 1 seed, Stanford looks to have the best combination of geography and competition of any of the No. 1s.

Saint Joseph's, meanwhile, eked into the final No. 1 seed despite posting the first perfect regular-season since UNLV more than a decade ago.

CBS analyst Billy Packer, who exudes a curmudgeonly cool, disputed the seeding of Jameer Nelson and Co.

"I don't agree with Saint Joe's being a No. 1 seed," Packer said. "I think without question Oklahoma State deserved to be in the No. 1 seed position. There comes as a time you have to forget about statistics and say who would win this game, and believe me I don't think Saint Joe's could beat a club like Oklahoma State."

Maybe we'll find out. Oklahoma State is the No. 2 seed in East Rutherford opposite Saint Joseph's.

Utah State would love to quibble about its seed or location. Utah State looks to be the 66th team in college basketball's 65-team world.

The teams that squeezed in while Utah State was squeezed out? BYU and UTEP, the NCAA Tournament's lowest-seeded at-large teams. Both are in the Phoenix region, BYU as a No. 12 and UTEP as a No. 13.

The league that made out the worst was the Big 12, which received more bids (four) than its power-conference brethren in the Pac-10 and Big Ten (three each) -- but saw all three of its bubble teams -- Oklahoma, Colorado and Missouri -- fall short.

The most successful league was the ACC, which tied the Big East, SEC and Conference USA with six bids -- and saw five of them get top-four seeds. That means the selection committee was forced to break one of its covenants, placing two teams from the same conference in a region's top four: No. 3 N.C. State and No. 4 Maryland in Phoenix.

Finally, we're thrilled to note the selection committee took SportsLine.com's advice and made North Carolina the No. 6 seed opposite No. 1 Duke, which means the teams could finally meet in the NCAA Tournament without having to reach the Final Four.

Who knew SportsLine.com had such power?