Calipari loves these NCAA seeds. No, really

INDIANAPOLIS – There have been seasons where Kentucky coach John Calipari tended to be highly critical of the work of the NCAA tournament's selection committee.

This year, however, wasn't one of them.

"I thought they did the best job of seeding this year that I've seen in eight years," Calipari told reporters Thursday prior to UK's Friday night NCAA opener against Northern Kentucky. "And you all are amazed I'm saying something nice about that committee. I'm just telling you, I watch closely, and I keep saying they were more transparent this year than they've ever been."

In terms of transparency, the NCAA's committee introduced a release in February of tournament's top 16 teams with seeds as it stood at that time. The Wildcats were a No. 3 seed then. They've not lost a game since then, and they'll actually start the NCAA tournament as a No. 2 seed.

That's a lot higher than the No. 10 seed that Kentucky might face in the second round: Wichita State.

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The Shockers in 2014 were unbeaten top seeds when the Wildcats were paired against them in the Round of 32 as No. 8 seeds. UK won, advancing to the tournament's final game.

Now Wichita State (30-4), winners of 15 in a row (the last 10 of them by at least 15 points) finds itself in an opposite position, and Coach Gregg Marshall understandably wasn't as content with the seeding process as Calipari this time.

"I'll defer to Cal on that," Marshall said Thursday. "They're probably more likely to talk to him about seeding and where he wants seeds to be than they would to me. They don't call me and ask me anything. They probably don't care that I disagree with the seedings. ... I'm kind of used to the short end of the stick, if you will, on the seedings. But that being said, we usually wear the dark uniforms, and we've won nine games in the last four years."