Kentucky Wildcats 5 for Monday: John Calipari's Body Language says it all when it comes to the NCAA seedings

I have to say that my admiration for John Calipari went up a million percent for his restraint when CBS announced Florida’s #2 seeding in the NCAA.  Check out the video below when it is announced that Florida is a #2 seed, Calipari stoically removes himself from the room quietly.  Who knows what went on out of camera range, but Cal knows he is always under the microscope.  Granted, anyone with working knowledge of college basketball knows Kentucky got screwed.  Here is video of Cal discussing the seed:

There seems to be more uproar this season about the seedings and ESPN  also questioned the NCAA’s decision to award Florida a two seed and Kentucky’s a four seed.  For the record, it’s not a problem I have with Florida’s #2 seed, it is the NCAA’s assertion that Florida is two seeds better than UK, despite UK owning them twice in three weeks. Apparently the NCAA took the conference tournaments into account before making their seeding decisions, at least according to ESPN:

"The committee waited on all four of the conference finals Sunday (Atlantic 10, SEC, ACC and Big Ten) before finishing the bracket. But there was no plan to automatically put the winner of the ACC tournament as a No. 1 seed. Duke did get a No. 1 while North Carolina received a No. 2. However, Kentucky was seeded at No. 4 after beating Florida in the SEC tournament title game Sunday and the Gators were seeded as a No. 2."

Hey, at least Kentucky is not Colorado, Virginia Tech, or Alabama.  Now those guys got screwed.  ESPN’s Dick Vitale was also questioning the Kentucky seed last night.  But let’s take a minute for the guys that really got screwed.  Here Dickie V rants on the selection committee and wonders just what is going on:

The man taking the heat for the NCAA is Chairman Gene Smith and he was on a teleconference last night and he attempted to defend the committees seeding of Florida over Kentucky, and in my opinion, did a really bad job.  Hattip to John Clay on this:

"Q. What do you mean that Kentucky slid a little bit? Are you saying the fact that they won the SEC tournament wasn’t a factor or it hurt them?GENE SMITH: Keep in mind there’s 10 people in the room and everyone in the room has different a emphasis on different criteria. So when we go to vote, everyone selects the criteria they think is important to them and they ultimately vote.That didn’t happen with just Kentucky, it happened with everyone else in the field. So when they came up on the board, everybody voted based upon their individual criteria. We study every single team, look at a lot of different factors. They ended up in the spot that they did, and we think it’s a good spot.And later:Q. I know some people on the network shows were questioning Florida being a No. 2 seed. Could you talk about that decision. GENE SMITH: Again, Florida is an outstanding basketball team, well coached. They played a very good overall schedule, had some quality wins. So when you stack them up against the teams in the top quadrant, we call it, they rose to the top. We felt like they deserved to be a No. 4 seed. They had strong strength of schedule, overall four, non conference strength of schedule of a seven. We felt they deserved to be at the top of the seed list. The No. 2 seed is a very strong seed."

The UK Hoops squad will learn their NCAA fate later today as the Women’s NCAA seedings will be announced at 7PM on ESPN tonight.  Let’s hope the NCAA committee gives them better consideration than the men.

Keep following www.http://wildcatbluenation.com for the best in Kentucky basketball and football news, rumors, and opinions. By Kentucky fans for Kentucky fans