Oregon Ducks Get a No. 12 Seed, Will Play No. 5 Oklahoma State in San Jose

There was apparently no rhyme or reason to the NCAA selection committee this season.

After finishing second in the Pac-12 and winning the Pac-12 Tournament, the Oregon Ducks were given a No. 12 seed in the midwest region, and will face No. 5 seed Oklahoma State in San Jose. Obviously, this means that the Ducks were out if they hadn't won the Pac-12 Tournament final on Saturday, which is just a bizarre concept to think about, given that the team only had one bad loss (Utah) and wins over UCLA, Arizona, and UNLV, and played the bulk of the league season without their starting point guard.

Making things even more bizarre was that UCLA, whom Oregon beat twice and is without Jordan Adams, was given a No. 6 seed and will play Minnesota in the South Region in Austin. The resumes of Oregon and UCLA are remarkably similar. The Bruins beat Arizona three times and beat Colorado and Missouri, but lost to Oregon twice, and also ASU, Cal, and WSU. How do you justify that as six seeds ahead of Oregon?

Cal was given a No. 12 seed, Colorado a No. 10, and Arizona, who, again, lost to Oregon, was also given a No. 6.

I don't even know what to say. Apparently, Arizona and UCLA were four seeds better than anyone else in the conference, and Oregon was the fifth-best team, and would have been out if they hadn't gotten the auto-bid.

I give up.

The silver lining is that Oregon becomes the de facto home team in San Jose. Oklahoma State is a good team, but a beatable team, and the winner of that game plays either St. Louis or New Mexico State. Our guys were just given a ton of motivation and have a plausible route to the Sweet Sixteen. Even if the seeding is pretty unjustifiable, we're not in a terrible position.