Duke, Kansas and Cincinnati are solidly established as projected No. 1 seeds. That leaves a battle for the fourth top seed, with Maryland seeming the most obvious choice this week.

However, we at Bracketology rarely settle for the obvious. Let's apply the three favorite words of the Oakland Raiders -- "Upon Further Review" -- before making a final decision.

One of our most valuable tactics in such situations is to "take the names off the jerseys." In other words, we need to conduct a blind side-by-side comparison. We'll compare Team A and Team B below, using all primary selection/seeding criteria as set forth by the NCAA (and a few of my own!):

	Team A	Team B
Win-Loss	16-3	15-3
RPI	6	4
Schedule	30	8
Home Record	10-0	11-0
Road Record	3-2	3-3
Neutral Site Games	3-1	1-0
Last 10 Games	8-2	8-2
Conference Record	6-1	4-2
Conference RPI Rank	2	4
Non-Conference RPI	13	9
Non-Conference Strength of Schedule	59	47
vs. RPI 1-25	3-3	3-2
vs. RPI 26-50	1-0	1-0
vs. RPI 51-100	2-0	5-1
vs. RPI 151-below	10-0	6-0
Scoring Margin	13.8	18.0

Obviously, data can be manipulated to various purposes. My analysis of this chart gives an edge, however slight, to Team B. It has a stronger schedule, a slightly stronger non-conference schedule and has posted three more RPI Top 100 wins (while playing four fewer sub-150 opponents).

Team A has a better in-conference profile (losing only at the No. 2 overall RPI team). But Team B's two conference losses were also on the road against the No. 1 and No. 10 RPI teams, respectively.

Although I don't give this next item a lot of weight, it's worth noting that Team B has a positive scoring margin more than four points per game higher than Team A (and has compiled it against a better slate of opponents). One other thing: Team B defeated Team A, 72-56, in a December non-conference game.

All of which is why Oklahoma, not Maryland, is still the final No. 1 seed in our projections this week.

P.S.: Think about this kind of side-by-side comparison, multiply it by about 75 teams, and you have a real idea of what it's like inside the NCAA selection process.

Joe Lunardi is the resident "bracketologist" for ESPN.com. He can be reached at jlunardi@home.com.