[oldalum]

There are 7 Big 10 teams in the tournament - FIVE are hosting as top-16 seeds.  Talk about an advantage.

The committee chair may have made a bit of a Freudian slip - when discussing Illinois, she literally said they got in "because of their body of work in the Big 10."  They lost to every top-10 team they played - well, okay, Marquette was ranked #7 when they played in Illinois.)  They lost to Colorado at a neutral site.  But they still made it in over Cal.

I seem to remember that the Pac-12 had very good pre-conference results against ranked teams, and the chair said the Pac-12 was the top RPI conference in the country. Doesn't seem like the seedings or the teams included reflect that. If you just looked at the bracket you'd have to say the Big 10 was the top conference. Not clear to me why parity in the Pac-12 results in teams dropping in seeding, while it seems to have the opposite effect in the Big 10.

[oldalum]

There are 7 Big 10 teams in the tournament - FIVE are hosting as top-16 seeds.  Talk about an advantage.

The committee chair may have made a bit of a Freudian slip - when discussing Illinois, she literally said they got in "because of their body of work in the Big 10."  They lost to every top-10 team they played - well, okay, Marquette was ranked #7 when they played in Illinois.)  They lost to Colorado at a neutral site.  But they still made it in over Cal.

I seem to remember that the Pac-12 had very good pre-conference results against ranked teams, and the chair said the Pac-12 was the top RPI conference in the country. Doesn't seem like the seedings or the teams included reflect that. If you just looked at the bracket you'd have to say the Big 10 was the top conference. Not clear to me why parity in the Pac-12 results in teams dropping in seeding, while it seems to have the opposite effect in the Big 10.