They also shipped nearly every SEC team out of their region. There was an info graphic of how far the teams had to travel for their first games and it was eye popping. Kentucky was in Boise. Auburn was in San Diego, Tennessee and Florida in Dallas. Arkansas in Detroit, Alabama in Pittsburgh. The only team that was close by and actually stayed in the south east for the first weekend was Missouri who got to play in Nashville. The pod system was supposed to prevent stuff like that. Seems like they seeded the rest of the field and then filled in with SEC teams lol.
Ofcourse in the end it’s hard to complain too much as a Kentucky fan because things opened up nicely for us, got a virtual home game in the S16 and choked to Brice freakin Weber and a mediocre K State team in arguably the worst tournament performance of Cal’s time at UK.