1. Let's get this out of the way. How did the selection committee mess this up?

Somebody on that committee hates Bruce Pearl's jackets. Tennessee couldn't have been treated worse. The Volunteers had the No. 1 RPI computer ranking going into the Southeastern Conference tournament. A one-point loss to Arkansas in the SEC semifinals and the Volunteers fall to a No. 2 seed, which is OK - but UT gets the No. 2 seed behind North Carolina? UNC, the tournament's top overall seed, plays home games in Raleigh and Charlotte. Tennessee gets a potential Sweet 16 matchup with Louisville, a legitimate Final Four contender, and that's if the Vols can get past Butler in the second round.

2. Any other problems?

Butler has to play 10th-seeded South Alabama in Birmingham. The Bulldogs got just a No. 7 seed despite being ranked 10th in the nation in the coaches' poll last night. Gonzaga, a No. 7 seed, has to come across the country to play Davidson in a big mid-major matchup in Raleigh, N.C.

3. Which team was treated most kindly?

Xavier gets taken out by St. Joseph's twice in the last nine days and still holds on to a No. 3 seed and gets an easier road than Louisville.

On the other hand, which left-out team should have been in?

None of them. The last team in the field was clearly Villanova since all the other 12th seeds were automatic qualifiers.

"It's almost like things were happening too good for us," Villanova coach Jay Wright said last night about all the other bubble teams going out early in their conference tournaments. "The reason I didn't sleep [Saturday] night was that I was thinking, 'Everything's got to go wrong for us today.' It had to."

4. Why is St. Joseph's seeded higher than Temple?

Because the Hawks made the tournament as an at-large team. Temple wouldn't have been so lucky.

5. You think Temple came out of nowhere?

How about the Georgia Bulldogs? They won two games in one day after going six weeks with just one win, from late January to early March. The Bulldogs got the SEC's automatic bid yesterday after finishing 4-12 in the regular season. But all anyone will remember about Georgia is that it beat Kentucky and Mississippi State on Saturday after that tornado ripped a hole in the Georgia Dome on Friday.

6. The lowest-ranked team in the field?

Coppin State was 227th out of 341 Division I teams. The Eagles won just two of their first 21 Division I games but are in the play-in game against Mount St. Mary's after winning the MEAC tournament. Philadelphia's Tywain McKee (Bartram High) scored 33 points in the 62-60 victory over top-seeded Morgan State.

7. Best first-round matchups?

In the Midwest, Kansas State, featuring super freshman Michael Beasley, faces Southern Cal, featuring super freshman O.J. Mayo. That Gonzaga-Davidson game will provide Georgetown's second-round competition.

8. Which teams have the best players?

Those teams tend to do well. The Inquirer's NBA draft expert, Jim Clibanoff, lists these players as having the greatest pro potential, regardless of class. They are listed alphabetically: Darrell Arthur of Kansas; Jerryd Bayless of Arizona; Beasley; Chase Budinger of Arizona; Austin Daye of Gonzaga; Eric Gordon of Indiana; Josh Heytvelt of Gonzaga; DeAndre Jordan of Texas A&M; Kevin Love of UCLA; Mayo; Trent Plaisted of Brigham Young; and Derrick Rose of Memphis.

9. Who has the best seniors?

This is Clibanoff's alphabetical list of his top senior prospects (from tournament teams): Stanley Burrell of Xavier; Joey Dorsey of Memphis; Shan Foster of Vanderbilt; Mike Green of Butler; Roy Hibbert of Georgetown; Darnell Jackson of Kansas; Courtney Lee of Western Kentucky; Maarty Leunen of Oregon; David Padgett of Louisville; Kyle Weaver of Washington State; and D.J. White of Indiana.

10. Did Drexel pick the wrong year to be good?

The Dragons of last season - who just missed out on an NCAA bid - would have looked even better this season.

"You know, it's crazy," Drexel coach Bruiser Flint said yesterday. "We've been joking - if we had the same season, we'd have been in, no question. They'd have been talking about us going to the Final Four. No question about that. That's the way it goes."

11. Name a coach who has taken three different non-BCS schools to the dance.

You can't unless you name Siena's Fran McCaffery, who also coached UNC-Greensboro and Lehigh to the tournament. Maybe some BCS school will get the hint and give the La Salle High and Penn graduate a try.

12. Other former local coaches in the tournament?

Roman Catholic High graduate Randy Monroe, a former La Salle assistant, coached Maryland-Baltimore County to its first bid. Former Penn assistant Steve Donahue makes his first appearance as a head coach after Cornell was perfect in the Ivy League. And Georgia's Dennis Felton is a former St. Joe's assistant. Coppin State's Fang Mitchell is a Philadelphia native, while Wisconsin's Bo Ryan grew up in Chester. Former La Salle coach Billy Hahn is an assistant at West Virginia.

13. What about local players?

The best of them include Butler's Mike Green, an all-American candidate from Franklin Learning Center; North Carolina's Wayne Ellington and Duke's Gerald Henderson from Episcopal Academy; Notre Dame's Rob Kurz from Penn Charter; and Siena's Ronald Moore from Plymouth Whitemarsh.

14. The best rebounding teams in the tournament?

North Carolina, Connecticut, Notre Dame and Kansas State.

15. What about field-goal-percentage defense?

Georgetown, Mississippi State, Kansas, Wisconsin, Louisville.

16. Which teams don't turn it over?

Texas, Washington State, Butler, UNLV, Siena and West Virginia.