[SniperSB23]

Originally Posted by philcski

They could have put them in the same bracket as Duke since they wouldn't potentially meet until the Elite 8, but they decided not to.

Actually they couldn't:

The first three teams selected from each conference must be placed in different regions. When a conference has more than three teams in the tournament, the committee tries to seed the teams so that they cannot meet until the regional final. Before 2006, this was an absolute rule. However, in the summer of 2005, the NCAA changed its rules to allow intraconference matchups as early as the second round of the tournament, assuming all measures to keep the teams apart until the regional finals have been exhausted.