It's the "if possible" that's a key. It is easily possible to arrange the bracket so that conference foes (who had just played one another five days earlier to decide the conference championship series) do not meet one another in the very first game of the NCAA tournament. With the two late losses to Wabash it could reasonably be argued that Wooster might have been seeded second instead of first for the games at Adrian. That would be as simple as moving Otterbein into the #1 slot. Or Wabash could have been placed at #7, instead of as the 8th seed. Or that one of the two teams could have been placed at a different site. The permutations are multiple.
My cynical side says that the committee reckoned that the Wabash wins were a fluke, and this is a chance for Wooster to get early revenge--the third straight game between the two in less than a week. My more fan-based side says that Wabash beat them twice and can do so again, that Wabash is on a mini role while Wooster is on a mini decline. As Wally said, this seems a lazy decision (at best). Putting my cynical side to rest and assuming that the Committee was unbiased and trying to do a good job they failed here in an obvious head scratcher.
We will see, of course, but it's just doesn't smell right.
