Podcast: Cal says Kentucky deserved better than No. 4 seed Some may say craziness is playing a conference championship game at 1 p.m., winning it, celebrating, boarding a flight in Atlanta and then trying to make it back to Lexington in time for the NCAA Selection Show at 6 p.m. That’s what Kentucky head coach John Calipari and his team attempted to do Sunday after defeating Florida in the Southeastern Conference Tournament title game.But that (March) madness was met by much larger absurdity Sunday evening when Calipari and his team arrived at his house Sunday for a Selection Show party — they were late, by the way — and were informed of their NCAA Tournament seeding. And even all that paled in comparison to Gene Smith’s comments explaining the seeding.Smith, the chair of the Division I Men’s Basketball Committee, took a lot of heat Sunday night for UK’s seeding in the NCAA Tournament. UK is seeded fourth in the East Region across from 13th-seeded Princeton. Should Kentucky win, it would play the winner of fifth-seeded West Virginia and either 12th-seeded Clemson or UAB.UK also has the tournament’s top overall seed, Ohio State, in its bracket — the Cats would face the Buckeyes in the Sweet 16 should both teams advance that far — along with a red-hot North Carolina team.”I’m a little surprised to be honest with you,” UK head coach John Calipari said upon returning to his house from the SEC Tournament. “It’s a tough road for us.”Tabbing Kentucky a four seed isn’t so much the problem until you look at where some other opponents were placed and seeded. Florida, which UK defeated Sunday for a second time this season to claim the SEC Tournament title, was seeded second in the Southeast Region.How does that make sense? Smith said the committee doesn’t put a lot of stock into just one game. The entire body or work, or resume, as Smith described, is taken into account for seeds. “You know, a lot of people put a lot of emphasis on the one seed, two seed,” Smith said on an NCAA teleconference. “At the end of the day, the top five lines are benefited in a great way. You benefit because you’re protected from being in an environment where you are at a home-crowd disadvantage when you get into the bracketing process. You’re protected as best as you can geographically, when we can put you in a geographic location that’s closer or in proximity, if we can do that, but that’s not always the case. Kentucky is a very good ballclub. But when it came to the votes, they slid a little bit. “Also keep in mind, when I mention Florida, it was to a particular question. You look at Kentucky’s full resume compared to everyone else, we feel real comfortable with their seed.”Slid a little bit? Kentucky is actually rising faster than it has all season.The Cats are winners of their last six games and eight of nine overall. After the double-digit win over Florida, UK’s RPI moved all the way to No. 7, according to realtimerpi.com, before the NCAA Tournament. “I don’t think it’s personal,” Calipari said of UK’s four seed, “but wow. This team’s really worked hard throughout the whole year. I think our RPI is a seven. So a seven RPI gets you a four?”Going into Sunday’s title bout, Calipari thought both Kentucky and Florida were three seeds or one was a three and one was a four, which would be determined by Sunday’s winner. Obviously that didn’t happen.”Good for Florida,” Calipari said. “Let them go win and hopefully we go win.” Smith was asked to explain how Kentucky “slid a little bit” entering the tournament.”Keep in mind there’s 10 people in the room and everyone in the room has different emphasis on different criteria,” Smith said. “So when we go to vote, everyone selects the criteria they think is important to them and they ultimately vote.”That didn’t happen with just Kentucky; it happened with everyone else in the field. So when they came up on the board, everybody voted based upon their individual criteria. We study every single team, look at a lot of different factors. They ended up in the spot that they did, and we think it’s a good spot.”Kentucky fans would beg to differ.”Let’s take it and move on,” Calipari said. “I’m just happy with how we played in the tournament and how my team is playing. They can seed us where they want to seed us. We’re playing well, let’s go do it.” We’ll have more on the NCAA Tournament on Monday (after I get a little sleep), including a look at UK’s first opponent, Princeton. Also, it’s the women’s turn Monday for the NCAA Selection Show, so we’ll have coverage of that as well in the evening. Stay tuned.