Nova Nation got a bit of an unpleasant surprise during Sunday evening’s NCAA tournament selection show when the Wildcats were announced as the 6 seed in the South. The ‘Cats will open the tournament against 11-seed St. Mary’s.

After claiming the Big East tournament championship on Saturday night, the consensus belief was that the Wildcats were safely on the 5 line with a chance of claiming a 4 seed. Instead, they were handed a 6. Adding insult to injury, Marquette, who Villanova beat out for both the regular season and conference tournament titles, were placed higher than ‘Nova as it received a 5 seed.

It was one of the more curious decisions made by the selection committee, which stated that Quad 1 wins (10-5 in favor of Marquette) and road record were the deciding factors in placing the Golden Eagles ahead of the Wildcats.

While the announcement of Villanova’s seed was somewhat of a surprise, and the placement of Marquette felt like a pretty significant slight, it’s not all bad for the ‘Cats.

Their placement in Hartford for the opening weekend is the closest tournament site to home and they should have plenty of crowd support.

Furthermore, the 3 seed in their region, Purdue, is arguably the weakest of the 3 seeds and enters the tournament losing two of three. The Boilermakers are heavily reliant on the performance of Carsen Edwards. 2-seed Tennessee is incredibly talented but is coming off its most lopsided loss of the season, a 20-point loss to Auburn. 7-seed Cincinnati put together an impressive season, with only two of its six losses coming against unranked teams and only once losing to a team that isn’t in the field of 68, but it’s fair to question how truly tested the Bearcats were in the regular season. It’s not a stretch to say that Villanova has the most manageable path to the Elite 8 of any of the 6 seeds.

Selection Sunday didn’t play out the way ‘Nova fans may have expected, and despite the seeming disrespect shown to the Wildcats, it’s hard to be too upset with their position heading into the Big Dance.

We’ll have more in-depth looks at all things NCAA tournament this week.

The ‘Cats will begin their quest for a repeat on Thursday night at 7:20.