Intelligent Design, or Unnatural Selection?

Selection Sunday felt like the Academy Awards all over again. Lots of montages, followed by lots of arguments.

Here’s more to debate: My Final Four picks are Connecticut, Texas, Gonzaga and Boston College, with Connecticut winning it all.

Feel free to disagree. Isn’t that what NCAA tournament selection day is all about now? Argue over who got in and who was left out. Argue over who received what seeding and who was sent where. Big conferences vs. mid-major conferences. Billy Packer vs. somebody. Anybody. (Seriously, don’t you think he wakes up on Selection Sunday just itching to get into it?)

Fortunately this isn’t the Oscars, which has no definitive way to prove “Crash” was better than “Brokeback Mountain.” And it isn’t Division I college football, where two years after the fact people are still arguing over who won the 2003 season’s national championship.

This is the NCAA tournament, and starting Thursday there are no more arguments. Each of the 65 teams can win a championship by winning six, possibly seven, games. And for the teams that are left out, if they couldn’t put together a definitive case to enter the tournament, chances are they weren’t going to win it. When someone cuts down the nets April 3, your first thoughts won’t be about Cincinnati or Florida State.

I wish we had a better idea of what the men’s basketball committee wants from its tournament applicants, but it keeps sending contradictory messages.

When committee chairman Craig Littlepage wasn’t being badgered or cut off by an indignant Jim Nantz and an ornery Packer, he said: “I think over time, this committee has spoken in terms of its expectation in terms of, to impress the committee, come tournament time, we would like to see there be rigor in the games that schools in the larger conferences choose to play as well as who the schools play in other conferences in the country.”

So why didn’t that tough-scheduling philosophy apply to Gonzaga? All three of its losses came to nonconference opponents who made the NCAA tournament. Two were to No. 1-seeded Connecticut and Memphis (Washington was the third). And Gonzaga beat NCAA qualifier Michigan State.

But Gonzaga was penalized for sweeping through a weak West Coast Conference and was beaten out by Tennessee -- Tennessee! -- for a No. 2 seeding. Perhaps the selectors were mesmerized by the computer numbers, which somehow rated the Volunteers’ nonconference schedule 30 points higher than Gonzaga’s even though Gonzaga played twice as many NCAA tournament teams.

Truth is, the committee probably did Gonzaga a favor by seeding it third in the West. It will have shorter trips to Salt Lake City and Oakland, and after giving Memphis a good run at Memphis, I like its chances to beat the Tigers on a neutral court. It’s the best No. 1 seeding Gonzaga could have in its region. So I’ll go with the Bulldogs to get by UCLA and Memphis.

I went with Boston College because I don’t trust Villanova to keep making outside shots (especially if Allan Ray’s vision might be blurry), I wasn’t impressed by Ohio State or any of the Big Ten teams (that tournament might have damaged my vision) and I don’t trust Florida in the tournament.

I don’t like Duke because they have to play great in order to win, and they’re just an off shooting night by J.J. Redick from being bounced. Mike Krzyzewski won his three championships with Bobby Hurley and Jay Williams at the point, and Greg Paulus isn’t in their class. Why Texas? Lamarcus Aldridge might be the best pro prospect in the tournament, and yet the Longhorns don’t always rely on him to win games.

The underrated element of the NCAA tournament is winning without your best, or when you’re not at your best. That’s why Connecticut is the pick to cut down the nets, even though you can tell Coach Jim Calhoun has reservations about his team.

If anything, I was encouraged by the Huskies’ last two games, a turnover-marred victory over Louisville and an overtime loss to Syracuse in the Big East tournament. If Connecticut can look so disinterested and win the way it did against Louisville, and come within some Gerry McNamara heroics of beating Syracuse despite shooting 30%, that shows it can overcome off nights.

Connecticut is strong inside on offense and defense, can knock down outside shots and has a good distributing point guard. All the ingredients. Go with the best talent and a proven coach.

I’ve learned my lesson from last year, when I thought Illinois’ teamwork could overcome North Carolina’s talent and picked the Illini at the Final Four. As soon as I saw the two teams take the court for the championship game, I felt like Ron Burgundy of “Anchorman” in the bear pit: “I immediately regret this decision.”

North Carolina had better players. Combine that with Roy Williams on the sideline and the Tar Heels’ victory over Illinois felt inevitable.

The only thing the Tar Heels couldn’t do was add some desperately needed highlights to the well-worn CBS loop. One day into the tournament and I’m already sick of the same old shots.

I know all the names and plays by heart. Christian Laettner, Tate George, Bo Kimble’s left-handed free throw, Derek Whittenberg’s airball/Lorenzo Charles’ dunk/Jim Valvano’s frantic run, Michael Jordan, Tyus Edney, Keith Smart, Hurley, Fred Brown passing to James Worthy, Bryce Drew, James Forrest, Chris Webber’s timeout, Al McGuire dancing, Laettner again.

Just wondering: Does CBS not have access to any of the footage from before it started broadcasting the tournament in 1982? You mean to tell me there were no great moments in NCAA tournament history before Jordan’s jumper?

The Oscar montages work because they’re working with a century’s worth of images. So leave the compilations to the Academy.

Starting Thursday, the NCAA brings us head-to-head competition ... and no more debates.

J.A. Adande can be reached at j.a.adande@latimes.com. To read more by Adande go to latimes.com/adandeblog.