Here's what I think happened:
Have you ever heard the story about how Marisa Tomei won an Oscar
a few years ago? Supposedly Jack Palance read her name, even though
her name wasn't the one on the card. It was simply a mistake, but it
wasn't as if they could take back the trophy once she'd run up front
and grabbed it. So everybody kept their mouths shut.
On Sunday, somebody on the committee probably wrote "Purdue"
or "Arizona" on the 8/9 line when he/she meant to write "Syracuse."
By the time the rest of the committee realized the error, they were
seeing it on CBS. So they were stuck with it. It's simply impossible
to believe that either of those teams, let alone both, earned 8/9
seeds while Syracuse was left out of the field entirely.
I mean, if the committee had put in Vermont, Akron and Drexel,
that would at least have made sense in some way. It would have been
because the committee wants to send a message that it's going to
reward mid-majors who had good years instead of including power
conference teams who had poor years. That's how George Mason slipped
in last year, and that decision worked out well for the tourney.
But to make room for the Catamounts, Zips and Dragons they would
have bumped the Boilermakers, Illini and Cedar Trees (or whatever
Stanford is called this week), not the Orangemen, who weren't
even "on the bubble" until about 6:55 last night.
Either that, or the committee really intended to reward Illinois,
Arkansas and Stanford for having mediocre years in weak conferences
(or at least conferences that are top-heavy -- two or three strong
teams and a bunch of lousy ones) and punish Syracuse having a good
year in a strong conference.