Tis long post. Sorry. Don’t blame everyone for skipping to the end. I did just get a refresher on results. I had my years all jacked up. In the early 2000s, the SEC and ACC generally had good representation at the Cws, but they got drilled quite a bit. And the ACC didn’t win one for a long time. It is the last 10 years or so that has changed. ACC finally won shit. SEC has kinda overrun teams. They absolutely get the benefit of the doubt, but their top end results are much better now. This year. A&M with a 3 seed that was flailing at the end of the season. Actually A&M played to seed. Arkansas, Vandy did not play to their seed beaten by T-4th Big 12 and 6th PAC-12, respectively. LSU, UF, USC, Kentucky, Bama played to their seed. UTenn above seed. Auburn. Worst performance of the tourney. Kentucky, RPI kings, lost as many games to WVU and Indiana as we did but fewer wins. Ball State as a 4. Pretty easy draw. Lost 1. Got rocked by LSU next round. Likely overseeded as top 16. Bama. Beat Nicholls State in a nail biter. Troy as the 3. Then BC. 6th best record in the ACC. Tough draw? Hung with Wake for one game. Then didn’t. Likely overseeded as top 16. USC got Campbell and essentially 9th place ACC. Hung in pretty well with Florida. They were faltering late but probably top 16 and seeded well. Tenn outplayed their seed. Who did they beat though? ACC. Then Sun Belt. They did earn it. Big 12. Texas played above seed. Only team traveling coast to coast. TCU played above seed and lost to your Florida Gators because you got an out on a fly ball that was a homer 97% of the time in major league parks this year. Tech played above seed. OSU and WVU played below seed. OU to seed. Not even sure why OU got the nod over KSU. Those 3 teams playing over seed went 6-3 versus ACC/SEC. with all 3 losses to UF. OSU. Well they did lose to a team that was one of the final 6 so is that bad? ACC. Wake, UNC, NCSU, BC and Virginia played to seed. Duke played above seed but Rider did some of their work for them. Miami below seed. Texas and OU were the only teams left of center in any of these regions. PAC 12. Stanford, Washington, Oregon State to seed. Oregon above seed. Arizona below seed. Oregon was the only team to play in a regional with teams east of Ark/La. They won. Arizona only lost to teams west of Ark/La. As best I can tell of the P5 conferences, the Big 12/PAC 12 are the only two conferences that had teams finish lower in the conference standings get selected over teams higher in the conference standings. It’s gotten to the point that the western half of the US has little representation. The representation they do have is not underachieving either. It’ll probably get worse. I don’t find that good for the sport. The selections are reflected in RPI, but that’s a big circle jerk. 11 of the top 12 in RPI are ACC/SEC. The other is Indiana State. This absolutely affects hosting and seeding. We’re trending to less diversification across the country. The circle jerk is because east coast teams play east coast teams so they prop each other up. When you drill down into their non-con schedules, it’s a ton of meh. There’s no doubt some SEC teams deserve to achieve, but there’s a lot of favorable matchups and opportunities that quite simply others are not afforded. And a bit of that is this attachment at the hip with the ACC.