For the 2nd straight year, a group of college basketball reporters have gathered in Indianapolis to go through the same process as the NCAA Selection Committee will next month. The only difference is that the media was given 12 hours, while the college administrators will have 5 days.

This type of transparency has been a great, albiet rare, decision by the NCAA. Last year's mock bracket revealed how much the committee weighs strength of schedule and 'quality wins.' This year's results provide more of the same.

Here's a snap shot of the final mock bracket:

No. 1: Memphis, UCLA, Kansas, Duke
No. 2: UNC, Tennessee, Georgetown, Stanford
No. 3: Wisconsin, Texas, Xavier, Arizona
No. 4: Pittsburgh, Michigan State, Butler, Washington State
No. 5: Connecticut, Kansas State, Louisville, Drake
No. 6: Texas A&M, Indiana, Southern Cal, St. Mary's
No. 7: Oklahoma, Mississippi, Marquette, Notre Dame
No. 8: Gonzaga, Arkansas, Purdue, St. Joseph's
No. 9: Rhode Island, Clemson, Baylor, Vanderbilt
No. 10: Massachusetts, Dayton, UNLV, Maryland
No. 11: Ohio State, BYU, Kent State, Oregon
No. 12: Florida, Davidson, Nevada, Creighton
No. 13: Sam Houston State, Appalachian State, Cornell, UNC-Asheville
No. 14: Siena, Hampton, UMBC, IUPUI
No. 15: Belmont, Austin Peay, Pacific, Northern Arizona
No. 16: UNC-Wilmington, Arkansas-Little Rock, Colgate
Play-in game: Quinnipiac vs. Jackson State

The biggest surprise for me was finding that Indiana and St. Mary's as both six seeds. Stanford as a 2-seed seems a little high, but the rest of the season should go about correcting that. In case you thought the committee was against mid-major conferences, it should be noted that 5 Atlantic-10 teams made the cut, just as many as the Big Ten. Safe to assume, and rightfully so, that the Pac-10 was considered the best conference at this early stage. That's the only way to explain Arizona as a 3-seed.

To that end, Mike DeCourcy of the Sporting News sheds some light on a few myths regarding the selection process.

That the committee counts up how many teams make it from a conference. Until we got around to building the actual bracket more than 10 hours into our exercise, I had no idea how many teams from any given league had been voted into the field. It just doesn't factor into the process. Terry Hutchens of the Indianapolis Star brought it up a few times; he either was keeping track on his notepad or is some kind of "Rain Man" in these matters.

That a team's own Ratings Percentage Index rank is important. The committee uses the RPI mainly to gauge whether a team under consideration has built up its attractive record beating good teams or bad teams. The RPI available to the committee can be arranged alphabetically or by rank -- but when it's ranked, there's no number attached.

Massachusetts may be 28th in the RPI, but you'd have to count down past 27 other teams to figure that out. Without the numbers, it's really hard to see at a glance where a given team stands. It's a lot easier to holler to one of the NCAA staffers that you'd like to see UMass' RPI performance breakdown -- how it fared against the top 50, top 100, on the road, etc. -- projected onto one of the common screens.

I still think the RPI plays a bigger role than what's been let on. The formula has been improved, but it still shouldn't carry more weight that one's own objective analysis. What is clear, you'd better beat some good teams in your non-conference schedule. Florida, who is currently ranked in the top 25, has only beaten 8 teams from the RPI Top 200 and thus was one of the last at-large teams "invited."

While we may not approved of the Selection Committee's bracket every year, I think we can all agree that it's best this is not in the hands of the media.