So I am inclined to make a more holistic rather than technical assessment of the bracket, and while I think there may be marginal bias in favor of the SEC, I don't think it's as extreme as you say.
For example, whether Miss. St. deserved the final no. 1 seed or not, UConn would have claimed it over either Stanford or Oregon, and note that Miss. St. is bracketed to face Oregon in the Elite Eight in Portland. Whether Oregon was the 1 seed or Miss. St. was, I'm pretty sure everything thinks that matchup is favorable to Oregon, not MSU, notwithstanding that they are the lower seed. I'd be much happier to be Oregon yesterday than to be MSU.
Does it suck that Stanford is traveling east again? Yes, but unless we were bracketed in place of Oregon in Portland, that was inevitable - Chicago is actually the next closest region. And because the committee prioritizes 350 mile drives or less, it was inevitable Oregon would get the Portland two seed. Frankly, given their past three seasons, I think they are worthy of the kind of home regionals we've enjoyed for many years in the past in Sacramento.
As for RPI vs. seedings, note that Oregon State had a lower RPI (24) but better seed (4) than Kentucky (RPI 22, 6 seed). Same with UCLA (RPI 35, seed 6) vs. Missouri (RPI 30, seed 7). So I think that roughly balances out.
Rather, to me the main ways the PAC-12 got screwed were by the locations for our lower seeded teams: sending Cal as an 8 seed to Waco for what I think is the third time in the past 5 years, sending ASU to a Miami site whose other teams are quasi-local teams UCF and FGCU, and matching up UCLA with Tennessee, who remains dangerous even though their profile was the edge of the bubble this year.
And speaking of Tennessee, they had 5 RPI top-50 wins, 3 of which were away (at 28 Texas, vs. 47 Belmont, at 50 Auburn, vs. 50 Auburn, and at 30 Missouri), vs. Arizona's 2 RPI top-50 wins, both at home (vs. 23 ASU and vs. 42 Cal), and U$C's 2 RPI top-50 wins, one at home (at 35 UCLA, vs. 42 Cal). The committee has always cared more about good wins than bad losses, and I think that's as it should be - if I were UCLA, I would be way more concerned about facing Tennessee at a neutral site than facing Arizona or USC. Tennessee isn't going to win 6 games in a row, but they can threaten just about anyone on any night. Lest we forget, we only walked away with a 10 point victory, and that was when our offense was firing on all cylinders and we racked up 95 points.
Finally, yes, it'd be nice to play a new first-round opponent, but most of the first-round sites tried to pair with quasi-local lower seeds, which is as it should be. UCD fans deserve the chance to see their team in the tournament, and sending them to Miami or Waco or Storrs would make that very difficult.
ETA: I expect the Monday game won't tip off before 6 pm (which is when it was last year) - there are only three PDT or MDT first round sites - us, Corvallis, and Eugene, so I'd guess ESPN will want to preserve those games for the 6 and 8 pm PDT broadcast slots because those time slots are way too late for CDT or EDT tip-offs. IIRC, last year most of the Monday tip-offs didn't start before about 3 pm local time, and were mostly EDT games.
For example, whether Miss. St. deserved the final no. 1 seed or not, UConn would have claimed it over either Stanford or Oregon, and note that Miss. St. is bracketed to face Oregon in the Elite Eight in Portland. Whether Oregon was the 1 seed or Miss. St. was, I'm pretty sure everything thinks that matchup is favorable to Oregon, not MSU, notwithstanding that they are the lower seed. I'd be much happier to be Oregon yesterday than to be MSU.
Does it suck that Stanford is traveling east again? Yes, but unless we were bracketed in place of Oregon in Portland, that was inevitable - Chicago is actually the next closest region. And because the committee prioritizes 350 mile drives or less, it was inevitable Oregon would get the Portland two seed. Frankly, given their past three seasons, I think they are worthy of the kind of home regionals we've enjoyed for many years in the past in Sacramento.
As for RPI vs. seedings, note that Oregon State had a lower RPI (24) but better seed (4) than Kentucky (RPI 22, 6 seed). Same with UCLA (RPI 35, seed 6) vs. Missouri (RPI 30, seed 7). So I think that roughly balances out.
Rather, to me the main ways the PAC-12 got screwed were by the locations for our lower seeded teams: sending Cal as an 8 seed to Waco for what I think is the third time in the past 5 years, sending ASU to a Miami site whose other teams are quasi-local teams UCF and FGCU, and matching up UCLA with Tennessee, who remains dangerous even though their profile was the edge of the bubble this year.
And speaking of Tennessee, they had 5 RPI top-50 wins, 3 of which were away (at 28 Texas, vs. 47 Belmont, at 50 Auburn, vs. 50 Auburn, and at 30 Missouri), vs. Arizona's 2 RPI top-50 wins, both at home (vs. 23 ASU and vs. 42 Cal), and U$C's 2 RPI top-50 wins, one at home (at 35 UCLA, vs. 42 Cal). The committee has always cared more about good wins than bad losses, and I think that's as it should be - if I were UCLA, I would be way more concerned about facing Tennessee at a neutral site than facing Arizona or USC. Tennessee isn't going to win 6 games in a row, but they can threaten just about anyone on any night. Lest we forget, we only walked away with a 10 point victory, and that was when our offense was firing on all cylinders and we racked up 95 points.
Finally, yes, it'd be nice to play a new first-round opponent, but most of the first-round sites tried to pair with quasi-local lower seeds, which is as it should be. UCD fans deserve the chance to see their team in the tournament, and sending them to Miami or Waco or Storrs would make that very difficult.
ETA: I expect the Monday game won't tip off before 6 pm (which is when it was last year) - there are only three PDT or MDT first round sites - us, Corvallis, and Eugene, so I'd guess ESPN will want to preserve those games for the 6 and 8 pm PDT broadcast slots because those time slots are way too late for CDT or EDT tip-offs. IIRC, last year most of the Monday tip-offs didn't start before about 3 pm local time, and were mostly EDT games.