Here are some facts.
Five Pac-12 teams received invites to the Big Dance. Two of them — UCLA and Arizona — got six seed, Colorado got a 10 seed and Cal a 12.
Bringing up the rear, somehow, is the team that led the conference until the final day of the season and won the conference tournament. The selection committee gave Oregon a 12 seed (technically one slot lower than fellow 12 seed Cal) despite the fact that the Ducks were the team to beat in the Pac-12 all season.
Sure, Oregon was swept by Cal and Colorado and the Ducks were no doubt hurt by stumbling down the stretch. The word on the street was that the selection committee would be willing to overlook some of the losses the Ducks without Dominic Artis, but Oregon’s o-fer on the last weekend of the season must have been a devastating blow to their resume. Admittedly, Oregon didn’t have the world’s strongest out-of-conference schedule but a 12 seed still seems almost shocking.
If the Ducks are a 12 seed even after winning their conference tournament, it’s worth asking if the Ducks would have gotten a bid at all without winning the conference title. And that’s a ludicrous question.
Consider that Oregon beat six-seed UCLA twice without the benefit of home court advantage and that the Ducks also beat UNLV — a fifth seed — on the road and Arizona at home. Despite this 4-0 record against a group of five and six seeds and three wins in the Pac-12 tournament, the selection committee seems stuck on the Ducks’ losses.
But any seed is better than no seed at all, and Oregon is saying all of the right things. Dana Altman says the Ducks don’t care who they play in the first round. E.J. Singler insists that Oregon doesn’t feel disrespected by the low seed.
“We know how good we are,” Singler said. “That’s all that matters. People will have different opinions.”
The Ducks will open against Oklahoma State, and as downright confusing as it seems that Oregon got such a low seed, there are some positives.
If Oregon had a slightly higher seed, the team might not be playing so close to home — Oregon opens in San Jose — and the Ducks would be set up to potentially play the number one overall seed in the second round. The brackets still work out so that Oregon would play the Louisville Cardinals if both teams advanced past the Sweet Sixteen and at this point in the year there are no easy games.
“At this point there’s not many bad teams,” Altman said.