What are you talking about? Nothing is a lock with a month to go, and you act like there are suddenly 5 2 seeds above Illinois out of nowhere.
Obviously nothing is a lock, but this is a board that loses their mind over the AP Poll, Torvik, Bracket Matrix, calling Lunardi an idiot and on and on and on. Based on your take, just eliminate the bracket thread until March 15th, right?
Seeing that's not going to happen, speculation is going to be the thrust of every post, right?
In any event, the tournament committee tries to maximize profit, which is how we ended up in Milwaukee last year as a 6 seed.
With that in mind, we start getting into OKC and St. Louis being the two locations that are going to be coveted....with your beef noted that we're still five weeks away. You should probably start with the "nothing is a lock 5 weeks out" on every "games thread" and "bracketology" thread. In any event:
Illinois (St. Louis)
Kansas (Either)
Nebraska (Either)
Iowa State (St. Louis)
Purdue (St. Louis)
Those are the initial ones that immediately come to mind. Remember that the top FOUR seeds are supposed to get priority. I'm sure I'm forgetting a couple, but for arguments sake, let's stick with this. Only two of those top teams can get those locations.
There is nobody playing better than KU right now. Iowa State is in really good shape, but has tough waters ahead. If Nebraska takes care of Purdue tonight, I'm not sure they have another loss on their schedule. Purdue.... meh, not totally sold on them, but they're in the equation. I'm pointing out the obvious right now.
A month ago, KU looked to be dead in the water. Iowa State and Illinois made the most sense. I don't think that was ever in question. Not anymore.They're back and winning high profile games. I was hoping they'd take an L last night.
I'm sure the committee would LOVE to put Illinois there and they'd LOVE to put Kansas in there as well. If that was the case, they send Iowa State packing.
Kansas is definitely the fly in the ointment....to me. As you said...five weeks in advance.
Edit: I'm sure Houston will be a lock on OKC.