Joe Lunardi breaks down SEC snubs in final NCAA Tournament bracket

After the 2022 NCAA Tournament bracket was finalized, a pair of SEC teams appeared to be snubs by the selection committee as ESPN’s Joe Lunardi explained. Texas A&M was left off the final bracket as one of the “first four out” teams, despite wins over Auburn and Arkansas in the days leading up to Selection Sunday. Additionally, Tennessee was seeded as a No. 3 seed of the tournament below fellow SEC opponent Kentucky — a team that they beat in the SEC Tournament and won the season series against with a 2-1 record.

Joe Lunardi on SEC snubs

As ESPN broke down the final bracket reveal on Sunday, bracket expert Joe Lunardi explained that these decisions by the committee were predictable, even if they weren’t the correct decisions. In his explanation, the Texas A&M snub was because the “Champ Week” games for each conference don’t outweigh the regular season.

“Overall I think we have to say the committee hit the mark,” started Lunardi. “But when I look at it, yes, for me it came down to Texas A&M and Wyoming. And maybe it was simply the recency of Texas A&M’s run. I looked for a differentiator. I thought A&M’s very best wins including at the end were better than Wyoming’s.

“But I’ve seen Wyoming a number of times, they’re very worthy. And I just kind of rebel when people say ‘this team deserved’ — it’s not about deserving. It’s about having enough spots. And once Richmond took one of them, they deserved it and somebody had to stay home.”

After explaining the reasons he felt the Aggies were left out of the bracket, Lunardi was asked how Tennessee could be ranked as a No. 3 seed, despite winning twice against Kentucky and winning the SEC Tournament.

“The first thing I’ll say is I get the frustration,” Lunardi continued. “I absolutely knew it was gonna shake out this way because these Sunday games, year after year after year, don’t matter in terms of selection and seeding. We’re looking at a Tennessee team — they finished tied for second in the SEC. And I just believe that the committee was not going to put them ahead of a Big East champion in Villanova. They were not going to put them ahead of Duke certainly, even though you can argue resume from now until next season.

“I don’t know, everything on my board said they were a three [seed] and I listen to you guys all day and I kept thinking ‘that’s not gonna happen.’ And they’re certainly not going to be a one [seed]. And look, I don’t think we would move any of the teams off the one-line for Tennessee. Two [versus] three — what we are really talking about here is the color jersey in the regional.”

Lunardi’s overall point seemed to be that because Tennessee wasn’t going to be listed as a one-seed team, being ranked two or three doesn’t truly impact their NCAA Tournament chances because the two and three seeds are scheduled to play in the round of eight. As for why they were a three-seed and not a two-seed, Lunardi claimed that his own personal metrics showed a stark difference between the Volunteers compared to Auburn and Kentucky.

“I’ve been aggregating metrics long before there was such a thing and long before there was the NET,” closed Lunardi. “When you look at it, they came out about 20 percent in my overall aggregate rankings, behind Auburn and Kentucky in terms of the season and the quality of their overall play. I just haven’t seen a team move that much within my indexing to jump two seed lines in a day or two.”