I doubt anyone is going to talk about the women, but wanted to comment.
My Northwestern Wildcats happily earned a top 16 seed and get to host. But, I still sort of feel they got a little ripped off (just a little) and got the absolute worst possible draw.
Northwestern has had an up and down season (well, mostly up after a slow start). They lost early to some teams that were ranked lower than Northwestern at the time - No. 26 Vanderbilt, No. 16 Georgia Tech, No. 23 Virginia. Virginia turned out to be very good and NU was missing a player when they played them.
Other than that, they lost to No. 4 North Carolina (3-4), No. 6 Duke (3-4), No. 7 Baylor (3-4) and No. 10 Michigan (1-6).
But, they also beat No. 3 North Carolina (4-2), No 5. Cal (4-1), No. 10 Michigan (4-3 the week after losing to them), No. 24 Texas (7-0), No. 20 Notre Dame (4-3).
[All rankings at the time of the match]
So they beat highly ranked teams and played a lot of top teams close. I know, big deal, lots of teams do that.
BUT, they finished with a rank of 14 after winning the Big 10 tournament, and if they would have been awarded the 14th seed, their chances of winning the Rnd of 16 and making it to the QFs would be infinitely better. Instead, they're No. 16 and matched with No. 1 Stanford (at Stanford no less).
And of all the unseeded teams they could possibly match up with in the second round, Notre Dame is the absolute worst. ND is a team that Northwestern beat at home 4-3 after being down 0-3. Just not a great match up.
No I don't think this is any sort of huge injustice. I just think it's a terrible draw for NU. I think paired against No. 3 Duke as the No. 14 seed, NU would have had a chance to make it to the QFs.