First post here. I've always been a closet Iowa State fan since the Hoiberg days. I have no affiliation to the university, born and raised in New York, but just something about the team and the great fanbase that drew me in and I've been a fan ever since. Found your little community (actually, really big community) so figured I would drop a line after the Cyclones got absolutely shafted which leads me to my thoughts on how the committee absolutely dropped the ball...
A couple of things really stood out to me.
Not only Iowa State as a 2 seed but as the lowest 2 seed is totally bogus. They put so much stock into a non-conference schedule that happened 4-5 months ago and ignored that this team (which was already a 2 seed on most brackets coming into Championship week) decimated Baylor and Houston while North Carolina who plays in a joke of a conference and lost to an average NC State team in the tournament gets a 1 seed. I know the whole body of work should be taken into account but when two teams are fairly closely bunched and one team has a MUCH better conference champ week than the other and it doesn't make a difference, that's a problem.
If I was on the committee, how well a team is playing now should factor higher than how a team played in November and nobody can convince me that there are 4 better teams than Iowa State now nevermind 7.
UConn gets the top overall seed and deservedly so since they are the best team in the country yet they get saddled with the toughest bracket with Big 12 Champ Iowa State as the 2, Big 10 Champ Illinois as the 3, SEC Champ Auburn (who got hosed as a 4) and the runner up last season San Diego St. as a 5. Make that make sense.
North Carolina, Kentucky and Michigan St. were all seeded too high. Notice a pattern with those 3 teams? All bluebloods. No bias there, right?
Virginia getting in at all with 2 Quad 1 wins while a bunch of Mountain West teams with clearly better resumes barely getting in and New Mexico getting an 11 as Conference Champ in one of the tougher conferences in the league is just more bias towards the big schools.
There's always beefs every year but this year seemed especially egregious.
Anyway, glad to be here, I legit think that this is the first Iowa State team that can make a Final 4 run for the first time since 2000 so looking forward to going on the journey with you guys/gals.