These conferences played very few matches outside their conference, so a 9-5 PSU gets ranked and seeded because they've been historically good? And the Big 10 is better as a conference (same logic didn't work for the basketball tourney)? Just seems pretty arbitrary.

I don't know a better way to rank and seed, but it would seem more fair to not give any teams a bye (and, yes, I know 48 doesn't work for that - but make it 64 - more teams happy, all teams have to expend some energy)

of the top 16 Seeds as 42% of their teams made the 48 team field even without Stanford (who've won 9 NCs) or USC (who've won 3 NCs) & UCLA who've won 4 NC's is the only unseeded PAC12 team who made it. It is a wierd year. The Big 10 got 43% of their teams in but all 6 are seeded. Big 12 only got 2 in (20%) but both are seeded whereas the SEC also got 2 seeded + 1 more unseeded for 21% of their teams. So the only non Power Conference seed was #16 BYU who was 1 of two invitees from the WCC.

With only 48 teams they had only 18 at larges which really effected the bigger Power conferences as the Big 10 & PAC12 always have more than 50% of their teams make it in the usual 64 team field. The ACC benefited from having a fall schedule which helped us get 4 teams in as usually we are not considered that strong of a conference. Neither the Big 10 nor the PAC12 played in the fall.