Mary Ann Chastain / AP

Are we overlooking Rodney Carney and the Memphis Tigers? Perhaps, writes columnist Ray Glier.

Q: Why is Pitt so low in the rankings after beating Villanova by 14 points? And why is it a 5 seed? All 7 of their losses were to Big East teams, and 6 of the 7 were to teams in the NCAA tournament. To me that says "top 10" and 3 seed.
— Doris Bell, Olney, Md.

A: Another by-product of the Big Beast, Doris. The conference got eight teams in the Dance and they had to be seeded somewhere. My guess is with Seton Hall and Syracuse jumping in the field late, Pitt slipped from a sure four to a five because the brackets had to be balanced out. There were so many Big East teams in the field they had to be spread out.

That has to be it because North Carolina, which is 12 in the RPI, compared to 11 for Pitt, ended up a 3 seed.

It could have been that after several years of travel, Pitt got a lower seed to stay closer to home, if you can call Auburn Hills close to home. They were in Boise last year; Milwaukee the year before.

Non-conference schedule played a big part. If you look at Tennessee’s non-conference it is way better than Pitt’s: 10th compared to 227 for the Panthers. The overall SOS was 30, but the criteria for a high seed is who you play, who you beat.

The Panthers also perplexed the committee with the loss at home to Seton Hall, which just squeezed into the bracket.

The Panthers were 7-5 against the RPI top 50, which should have landed them at least a 4. They finished 6-4 in the final 10 games and it was apparent that the selection committee did not pay much attention to the win over Villanova in the conference tournament.

I think the 5 seed is not a reflection on Pitt, as much as the machinations of making the bracket work.

Q: I think changes are needed to keep the college game somewhat intact as we know it. It would be interesting to take the 64 teams and note by each the budget for basketball, head coach salary, staff salaries and facilities for basketball. NCAA needs to follow suit of professional sports and set caps on salaries, on budget, etc. What do you think?
— Larry

A: The NCAA has a salary cap, Larry. It is called a scholarship limit. That is all they can do.

If you mean the NCAA capping salaries of coaches, that's illegal. If you mean telling schools what kind of facilities they can build, forget that, too. There is an arms race out there. The debt service high major schools pay — which is part of their athletic department budget — is larger than the athletic budgets of some of the 326 schools playing I-A basketball.

There is no way to even that up. Kentucky plays in a 23,000-seat arena. It gets a cut of TV money. UK has resources to recruit nationally. It has resources to pay Tubby Smith almost $2 million a year.

UW-Milwaukee paid Bruce Pearl about $235,000 in 2004-05. Pearl just got a raise to $1.1 million at Tennessee after a successful first season. It is big corporations and little corporations and it will not change.

Where the NCAA can set a cap is with all the ancillary people around the team. Just check out the team pictures. There are more people out of uniform then in uniform. Why so many baby-sitters? Team managers and assistant coaches galore.

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