Tom O’Connor has a dream job with tons of downside to it this year: he’s the chair of the NCAA Tournament Selection Committee .

So?

So he’s the also the athletic director at George Mason University, who is probably a 14 or 15 seed, but will they be placed higher?

You should know that O’Connor is never in the infamous war room whenever his school is being discussed—nor are any other reps when their schools/conferences are debated over—but can’t we be allowed to invite the possibility of the human factor playing a part in the committee members’ minds?

Do I think Mason has upset potential? Yes. But the bad news is that we’ll only know that O’Connor’s presence on the panel will only be without any influence if the Patriots are seeding correctly. That’s the unfortunate reality.

There are other members on the committee who represent bubble teams, but O’Connor’s the head honcho, so he gets all the good and bad pub. It should be interesting to see which schools listed below get in and which don’t. I do trust the committee, but expect this subplot to pop up once or twice by the time the weekend comes.

The rest of the committee and the schools they represent:

• Eugene Smith, AD, Ohio State
• Stan Morrison, AD, UC-Riverside
• Daniel Guerrero, AD, UCLA
• Michael Slive, SEC Commissioner (Chair next year)
• Jonathan LeCrone, Horizon Commissioner
• Chris Hill, AD, Utah
• Lynn Hickey, AD, UT-San Antonio
• Jeffrey Hathaway, AD, UConn
• Laing Kennedy, AD, Kent State

Tuesday, March 11th, 2008 @ 8:46 am Opinion
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