Who would be in and who would be out if the tournament selection was today? The NCAA men's bball tournament selection committee invited 20 members of the U.S. Basketball Writers Assn. for a selection simulation excercise earlier this week.

The results? A newfound respect for its work. Granted the writers were given less than half-a-day (which got extended another 90-plus minutes) instead of the days that the committee has.

Surprises? Just past the conference season midway point for most, was that six Pac-10 teams not only were in the tournament, but in as relatively high seeds. The S-curving matchup bracket had UCLA as a #1 seed and the overall #1 team. Right in there was Washington State as a #3 seed and Oregon and some team across town as #4 seeds. Stanford was in as a #5. And last but nowhere near the bottom of the at-larges was Arizona at #7. And notably missing is Washington, a team once ranked as high as #8 in the coaches poll, and now struggling with a 4-7 conference record.

-- Friday Feb 9 update -- Washington beat the Golden Bears at home, lifting their conference record to 5-7 heading into a Saturday game with Stanford. --