The NCAA tournament committee often comes under fire for basketball. It gave North Carolina a laughably easy draw as the third No. 1 seed, and that was a big deal as UNC won the title.

Now imagine this: The top-ranked team in the country not only doesn’t get a No. 1 seed, but instead, drops out of the top 16 and has to play in the same bracket as the committee’s top overall team. That would be an absurd, unthinkable scenario. As unrealistic as that sounds, that’s exactly what happened to Minnesota softball.

On Tuesday, the newly released coaches poll named Minnesota as the top team in the nation — ahead of No. 2 Florida. But on Sunday, the 54-3 (!!!) Gophers were an unseeded team sent to the Tuscaloosa regional. In softball, the top 16 teams in the country are seeded hosts of regionals. In the eyes of the selection committee, Minnesota did not make that cut.

It was an inexcusable decision that has brought the committee under intense scrutiny.

In covering something like 40 brackets between sports, not sure I've ever seen worse committee blunder than unseeded Minnesota. Inexcusable. — Graham Hays (@grahamhays) May 15, 2017

Minnesota with 54-3 record. I’m happy to listen to committee tell me about lack of quality wins or whatever, but 54-3 is worthy of Top 16. https://t.co/3wKAbbqUls — Adam Amin (@adamamin) May 15, 2017

"Tonight's NHL playoff game will not be hosted by the Pittsburgh Penguins. They have been replaced by Alabama." – NCAA Softball Committee — Clarence Swamptown (@CSwamptown) May 15, 2017

@NCAAsoftball I found the map of the USA that the NCAA softball selection committee used. No wonder @GopherSoftball is not top 16 seed. pic.twitter.com/TnuYpnkOAf — Grudge Guy (@GrudgeGuy) May 15, 2017

When the NCAA selection committee announced its first top 10 ranking of the season back on April 22, it had Minnesota as No. 8. The Gophers won all 14 games they played since that initial ranking, but somehow dropped out of the top 16.

To make matters worse, if Minnesota were to move on from the Tuscaloosa region, it would face the winner out of Gainesville — the home of top overall seed Florida. It’s one thing for Minnesota to not get a top 16 seed, but its road to the Women’s College World Series goes directly through the NCAA’s best team.

Head coach Jessica Allister was justifiably upset about the committee’s decision. She expressed shock with the snub via The Star Tribune:

“I think when you go back and look at our preseason schedule, we go to Texas and [beat] Texas twice,” Allister said. “We go to the Big Ten/ACC Challenge, sweep Notre Dame and N.C. State. Go to LSU, beat LSU on their home field. Go to Fresno [State], who’s a top-20 team last year, beat Fresno. Go up to Washington, go to Cal, go to Oregon State. “ I think it’s a tough thing to swallow when you hear that that schedule’s not good enough because I’m not quite sure what else we could have done in the preseason.”

The pushback was so intense that the NCAA issued a statement on Monday in hopes of defending the decision, pointing out that Minnesota’s strength of schedule wasn’t up to the level of the seeded teams.

Statement from the NCAA DI Softball Committee regarding the University of Minnesota's softball team: pic.twitter.com/uWRN0cCaiM — NCAA Softball (@NCAAsoftball) May 15, 2017

“Again, this was a very difficult decision and should not take away from the season that Minnesota has had thus far. We are excited about the parity in Division I Softball and look forward to a great tournament.”

It’s true that Minnesota’s strength of schedule wasn’t impressive, but it still won 54 games. It still held a No. 11 ranking in the RPI, which is used by the committee. The Gophers also went 16-3 against teams in the field of 64 while winning 38 games on the road.

If the committee didn’t want to give Minnesota the No. 1 overall seed, that’s fine. There wouldn’t be much backlash, but to leave Minnesota completely unseeded is a joke.

An NCAA tournament committee has never been more wrong.