No dinner, no movie, no kiss, no K-Y....

I must express my admiration for the NCAA tournament selection committee. Not only did they fill the largest bracket in tourney history, but they also pissed off more fanbases than ever before -- many of whom follow teams that made the field. I'll leave the perceived snubs for another discussion -- let's look at who got screwed:

Kentucky

My beef isn't so much with Kentucky's No. 4 seed in and of itself -- it's that the committee saw fit to bestow a No. 2 on Florida. Let me get this straight: UK beat Florida twice. UK pounded Florida in the SEC tournament championship game. UK was ranked higher in the final Ratings Percentage Index.

Yet Florida somehow is the better team.

Yeah, right.

So UK gets a date with Princeton, never an easy out, in what is now the second round, and assuming the Cats beat the Tigers, play a rematch with West Virginia. After that, if form holds, would come Ohio State.

That, friends, is a brutal draw.

Louisville

Evidently UConn impressed the daylights out of the committee by winning five games in five days to capture the Big East tournament championship. What the committee seemingly ignored was the reason the Huskies had to do that: they finished NINTH in the league during the regular season. What's more, they lost TWICE to Louisville.

Yet UConn is a No. 3 seed, and U of L is a No. 4.

Despite what committee chairman Gene Smith said about looking at each school's body of work, it seems the regular season didn't count for much. Nor did the Big East Tournament, except for UConn; the Cards got no discernible benefit from beating Notre Dame.

Now the Cards head off to Denver to play Morehead State (which also got reamed -- more on that later). Nothing says committee respect like being sent 1100 miles to meet a team whose campus is less than 150 miles from yours. At least two years ago when the Cards and Eagles met, it was in Dayton, Ohio, a reasonable distance from both Louisville and Morehead.

Morehead State

The committee members must be avid TV Land watchers, judging from their seeming love of reruns. This will mark the third consecutive NCAA appearance in which Morehead has played Louisville; at least the Eagles weren't required to win a game to earn the privilege. Heaven forbid the Commonwealth should have a chance for three of its teams to reach the round of 32; could Morehead not have played one of the two No. 4 seeds not named Louisville or Kentucky?

Ohio State

How can I have the overall No. 1 seed on this list?

Well, OSU head coach Thad Matta might want a word or twelve with his boss, the aforementioned Gene Smith. When your own athletic director heads up the selection committee, you might expect an easier road to the Final Four than a regional featuring the likes of North Carolina, Syracuse and Kentucky. It would appear Pittsburgh has the clearer path to Houston, but given the Panthers' penchant for flaming out early in the Big Dance, I wouldn't recommend betting the mortgage payment on them to get there.

Suffice it to say, if the Buckeyes get to the season's last weekend, they will have done some work to get there.