Disappointment with a capital 'D'

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Here's the scene from tonight's selection show party at World Cafe:

Greg Gumbel: ...And on Friday in Dallas, the number two seeded Longhorns will play...

[Complete silence]

Gumbel: the champions of the Ivy League, the Penn Quakers...

[Complete silence]

[Obligatory applause]

OK, so 180-degree turn from last season's "Wow, we could actually play with those guys." This was more of a shock and awe.

Now you're not going to hear one disparaging comment about the pairing or anything else about the tournment from Fran Dunphy or his players -- they have too much class for that. But that's what talking heads are for. This pundit thinks the Quakers got the short end of the stick.

It's one thing to be a 15-seed, and that was probably deserved given the two losses to abysmal Ivy teams. But being one of the bottom two 15s is incredible. Belmont (20-10, 115 RPI) gets a gift of a game against UCLA in San Diego. Winthrop, whose only claim to fame is a win over Marquette in mid November gets another prize pairing with spiraling Tennessee (which ended up two seeds higher than it deserved). It's a strange, strange bracket.

All in all, it's disappointing a Penn team with as much talent as this one will not get the stage on which to show it. The strengths of Dunphy's team this season -- ball handling, guard defense and forcing turnovers -- won't go very far against the size and physicality of Texas. Oh yeah, and it's a home game for the Horns.

Looks like the selection committee saw the team that scored 12 points in the first half at Princeton rather than the team that played 40 good minutes with Duke and took Villanova to the wire.

We'll certainly have more time to break down this matchup for you both here and in the DP starting tomorrow.

Also, you might be interested to know that Temple and Saint Joseph's will be representing the Big 5 in the NIT. La Salle was a late snub, which means all five city league teams will not have a postseason. While the Big 5 has gotten four teams in several times, all five have never made the NCAA or NIT in the same year.