Here's the blog post I read last month complaining about the seeding process in WBB. It focuses on the top 16, but the principle is the same all the way down, IMO.
Well, yes. The first game was the obvious previous data point. :)
The Aggies are a much different team, IMO, now than they were in game 2 of the season--100% agree. Let's see if they can do better than the 2011 team did!
Common opponents: Washington St, Hawaii, CSUN, USF. All relatively easy wins for Stanford, though it's worth noting that CSUN did pretty well, relatively speaking.