INDIANAPOLIS - The NCAA selection committee expected to struggle in seeding this year's 65-team tournament field. Every weekend upset made the task even more daunting.

With a record number of schools topping 20 wins, a rash of surprise finishes and a continually changing picture, nothing was decided easily. Not even choosing the top four seeds - Illinois, North Carolina, Duke and Washington.

The 10 committee members debated into the final hour Sunday about how the brackets should look, and finally settled on making Washington a No. 1 seed.

"You want to make sure you get it right on Line 1 but you also want to get it right on Lines 2, 3 and 4," selection committee chairman Bob Bowlsby said. "If you don't, then the fairness of the tournament is then really called into question."

Bowlsby's fifth year on the committee might have been his toughest.

He acknowledged teams such as Kansas and Gonzaga may have deserved better than a No. 3 seed. Others, like Maryland and Buffalo, maybe could complain they should have been included.

Then there was Bowlsby's own school - he is the athletic director at Iowa - which leapfrogged Indiana into the tournament even though the Hoosiers won three more Big Ten games.

And yet it was the late-game results that created the most chaos.

"It was a big headache," Bowlsby said. "We had about five or six different scenarios that involved about four teams and a lot of them were either-or type situations."

The top three seeds - Illinois (32-1) in the Chicago region, North Carolina (27-4) in Syracuse, N.Y., and Duke (25-5) in Austin, Texas - were no surprise.

The Illini won the Big Ten regular season and then the tournament title and were ranked No. 1 most of the season. The Tar Heels and Blue Devils split the regular-season and tournament titles in the Atlantic Coast Conference, which had the nation's highest conference RPI.

But Washington (27-5), which ranked No. 14 last week, took the No. 1 seed in Albuquerque. Many thought that spot could have gone to a third ACC school, Wake Forest; Southeastern Conference regular-season champ Kentucky (25-5); or sixth-ranked Louisville (29-4), which won the Conference USA regular season and tournament titles.

Instead, the weekend's upsets turned everything upside down.

It's the sixth time in eight years two teams from the same conference were seeded No. 1. The last time was 2003, with Oklahoma and Texas of the Big 12. No conference has ever had three No. 1s and for the first time ever two No. 1s will be playing in the same venue.

Duke and North Carolina will both play Friday in Charlotte. Duke opens against Delaware State (19-13), while North Carolina (27-4) meets the winner of Tuesday's play-in game between Oakland (12-18) and Alabama A&M (18-13).

Oakland is the only team in the field with a losing record.

"We try to keep people as close to home as possible, and that starts on Line 1," Bowlsby said.

Kentucky drew a No. 2 seed after losing to Florida in the SEC championship and will play in nearby Indianapolis. Louisville drew the No. 4 seed in Albuquerque and opens in Nashville, Tenn.

"People inside here were saying, 'We're definitely a 2, maybe a 1,'" Louisville coach Rick Pitino said. "I said, 'Look, don't be surprised if we're a 3.' I had a gut feeling."

Other teams were not so lucky.

Bowlsby said Wake Forest could have sneaked back into a top seed if Duke had lost the ACC title game. Instead, the Demon Deacons were given a No. 2 seed and sent to Cleveland for a contest with Chattanooga (20-10) and a possible regional final showdown with Washington.

Seventh-ranked Boston College (24-4), the Big East regular-season co-champ, was shipped to Cleveland, where it faces Ivy League champ Pennsylvania. Boston College is No. 4 in Chicago.

"I'm disappointed, because we had it in our hands, being 20-0, and let it slip away," Eagles forward Jared Dudley said. "But you can cry about it, or you can do something about it."

Two other Big East schools, Connecticut (22-7) and Syracuse (27-6), will play in Worcester, Mass. Connecticut, the defending national champ, is the second seed in Syracuse, while the Orange are No. 4 in Austin.

The committee can't put more than two teams from the same conference at one site.

Among those not invited were Saint Joseph's (19-11), DePaul (19-10), Maryland (16-12) and Notre Dame (17-11). With the Irish missing the cut and 15-13 Indiana falling off the bubble, it is the first time since 1972 that the state of Indiana was shut out of the tournament.

The Illini won't get any frequent flyer miles in this tournament, with the first and second rounds in Indianapolis, the regional in Chicago and the Final Four on April 2 and 4 in St. Louis.

Illinois opens Thursday against Northeast Conference champion Fairleigh Dickinson. They were followed in the Chicago regional by second-seeded Oklahoma State, which won the Big 12 tournament; No. 3 Arizona, the regular-season Pac-10 champion; and Boston College.

Washington opens Thursday in Boise against Montana, the Big Sky champion. Gonzaga is the No. 3 seed in the region and plays Winthrop.

After North Carolina, which lost to Georgia Tech in the ACC semifinals, and Connecticut, Kansas is No. 3 and Florida is No. 4.

Along with Duke and Kentucky in the Austin bracket are third-seeded Oklahoma and Syracuse.

The Big East and Big 12 each has six teams in the field, one short of the record, while the ACC, SEC and Big Ten have five apiece. The other multiple bid leagues were Conference USA and the Pac-10 with four; the Missouri Valley with three; and the Big West, Mountain West, West Coast and Western Athletic Conference with two.

The last of the at-large teams were all No. 11 seeds: Alabama-Birmingham (21-10), Northern Iowa (21-10) and UCLA (18-10).