Adam Wodon wrote:
>    I don't know a whole lot about the number-crunching and the
> committee's thinking, but my take on Lowell was that the committee
> needed to balance out the regions.  If No. 6 Cornell went to the West
> and No. 4 Lowell went back East, then that would have unfairly knocked
> Clarkson to a No. 6 seed, and made Cornell a No. 5 seed in the West
> ahead of Providence.
>    Putting an equal number of "strong" and "weak" teams in the two
> brackets seemed to make sense to me, moreso than any other reason I've
> heard from the committee or others.
 
None of this makes any sense IMO.  The committee certainly didn't need to
send Lowell out west to make the west stronger.   The West was stronger than
the East to begin with.   If you were trying to balance the brackets, then
perhaps two strong West teams would be sent east and become 2E and 3E and
the two lowest Eastern teams sent west to become 5W and 6W.  This would give
a balanced bracket.
 
As to "unfairly knocking Clarkson to a No. 6 seed" what would be unfair about
that?  If the only way you can keep from falling to a number 6 seed is to
prop you up with an even lower ranked team to fill the number 6 slot, then
you don't deserve to be #5.
 
DaveH
 
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