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    Tim Branstetter

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March 15, 2010

Selection committee not kind to Kentucky

The Times-Tribune

CORBIN — Are you kidding me? Texas an eight seed?

I think this year's “Selection Sunday” should be renamed Duke’s “walk in the park.”

I didn't realize it was going to be a comedy show with Duke playing the star role. This is the worst bracket I have ever seen. Even the team I hate more than anyone, Tennessee, should have gotten a four seed, not a six.

Mississippi State should have been in over Florida.

What a joke!

The Bulldogs defeated the Gators 75-69 and defeated No. 20 Vandy by 10 points to make the SEC finals. So a team that can take the No. 2 team in the country to a last second tip-in is not good enough to make the tournament? Unbelievable.

What happened to John Calipari's Kentucky Wildcats deserves a chant that starts with “Nuts and bolts, nuts and bolts, ...” — if you have ever been to a high school game, you know the rest.

The Wildcats will have a chance to destroy another Tennessee team (Tennessee State) in the first round, and as nice as that is, the party ends there. They threw Texas in at the eight seed with a possible second round matchup with Kentucky.

The Wildcats have as good of a record as anyone in the country, they are the only team that can say they defeated every team they played this year. They were able to avenge their loss to South Carolina with a double digit victory and avenged their loss to Tennessee by 29 points on a neutral site. So their reward is playing Texas (former No. 1) in the second round, with West Virginia (who deserved a No. 1 seed) waiting at No. 2.

Their sweet sixteen match-up could be Temple or Cornell (who deserve more like a six or seven seed). Throw in New Mexico and Marquette for good measure and you have one tough bracket.

Kentucky would have been better off at any of the No. two seeds. Their second round opponent in the East Region would be Clemson or Missouri. In the Midwest Region, Oklahoma St. or Georgia Tech. In the West Region, Florida or BYU. In the South Region, Richmond or Saint Mary’s.

Now on to the “walk in the park” or what the NCAA committee calls the South Region.

Duke won the lottery and nobody else even got to buy a ticket. First they get the play-in game. Boy, that’s hard.

Then they could face, wait for it — California. That’s right the mighty Golden Bears. Then the Sweet Sixteen is where the Blue Devils will have their work cut out for them — yeah right.

They could face Purdue, oh wait they are without their leading scorer.

Never mind.

Oh, but don't worry, they might have to face Texas A&M.

Man, that will be tough. The show the NCAA has scripted for Duke might just win an Oscar for the best romantic comedy of the year.

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