THE AIRING OF GRIEVANCES, NCAA SELECTION EDITION

I get it. Being on the NCAA Selection Committee for any of its championship events is a thankless job. (Well, maybe the committee members get a per diem).

I have no problem with regular-season opponents - or even arch-rivals in the case of Clemson and South Carolina - being paired in regionals.

But, can we please get some consistency from the NCAA? Baseball Selection Committee Chairman Farrell said that geography played a large role in determining where teams were sent for regionals, and in super regional pairings.

“Unfortunately, it is something that we’re told to take under consideration and stick to as a result of directives from the NCAA Championships cabinet,” Farrell told Baseball America, referring to instructions to limit  travel as much as possible. “So we tried to spread it around as much as  possible."

OK, the NCAA wants to limit travel as much as possible, Farrell says. I'll give it a pass on sending  both Texas A&M and Texas San Antonio to Corvallis, Ore. There are no regionals in the South Central USA.

But wouldn't a Florida trip to play Florida State in Tallahassee meet every criteria used to send Clemson to USC?  (As an aside: if I were King, teams with 29-28 records wouldn't receive at-large selections to the postseason, no matter how strong the strength of schedule).

How about Florida Atlantic being sent to Chapel Hill instead of Tallahassee. Then, there's Liberty coming to South Carolina and Coastal Carolina going to Virginia. Elon and UNC Wilmington head to Virginia when there are TWO regionals in North Carolina?

Quick: Which regional site is closer to East Tennessee State - Columbia or Nashville. If you said Nashville, you're wrong by about 69 miles. GoogleMaps says Johnson City is 285 miles from Nashville and 216 from Columbia.

St. Louis, which heads to Columbia with the same No 4 seed as East Tennessee State, is located 308 miles from Nashville and 747 from Columbia.

Did anyone on the NCAA Selection Committee take geography at some point in their lives?

It's like they're taking lessons from the people who allow Jay Leno to embarrass them on national TV during the Jaywalking segments.

It's called a map.

Buy one.