It looks like UCLA’s season-ending losses to Washington and Cal cost itself a No. 1 seed. Instead, they’ll be No. 2 behind Kansas in the West Regional.

And I’m completely OK with that.

More than seeding, more than how you played in your conference tournament or your RPI and strength of schedule, one thing matters more than anything else in the NCAA tournament.

It all comes down to matchups. The most important thing in March is who you play, and how well you measure up to them with respect to personnel, style, and coaching. Almost everything else is secondary. Win six straight games and you can call yourselves national champions.

Suffice it to say, I like the matchups that the Bruins potentially face down the road, and their potential games bring with them a fair amount of intrigue.

UCLA will open the tournament with Weber State, which also happens to be Ben Howland’s alma mater.

After that game, the Bruins will face the winner of the No. 7-No. 10 game featuring Indiana and Gonzaga.

Those two teams faced off in the second round of last year’s tournament, and of course the ’Zags eventually fell to the Bruins in that epic Sweet Sixteen comeback.

Both the Hoosiers and the Bulldogs, while solid squads, lack the firepower and consistency, I think, to hang with UCLA for 40 minutes.

Gonzaga more closely resembles the mid-major darlings they used to be rather than the star-studded squads they’ve been recently.

Indiana is probably a year away (when they’ll have super-guard Eric Gordon) from making some real noise nationally.

The third round only deepens the plot, as UCLA could face Pitt, Howland’s previous school. The Panthers are coached by Howland’s protege Jamie Dixon.

Both teams are also mirror images in style. Each plays Howland’s trademark in-your-face man-to-man defense and are very deliberate and efficient in the half-court.

The main difference is in the guard play, which tilts the scale toward UCLA dramatically.

Darren Collison and Arron Afflalo can lay claim to being the top back-courts in the country (last week notwithstanding). Both are lock-down defenders and can score on their own or create for others.

Aaron Gray, Pitt’s senior center, will be a factor, but he is foul-prone and isn’t very quick or mobile. The caliber of the Bruin guards outclasses the Panthers’, and that advantage will leave UCLA in a showdown with Kansas in the Elite Eight.

Against the Jayhawks the Bruins don’t match up quite as well, although few teams do with Kansas. Though it is not the most disciplined team, Kansas is, in my estimation, the most talented, with elite athletes at every position.

This is likely where a run to a record 12th national title will end for UCLA, but the Bruins will not go down easily, especially with the advantage of playing close to home in San Jose.

If Howland can guide his team past Kansas, UCLA will have just as good a chance as any to win it all.

While Florida remains the odds-on favorite to repeat, remember that no team has made back-to-back trips to the Final Four since Maryland in 2001 and 2002, and no team has won two straight championships since Duke in 1991 and 1992.

Can the Bruins repeat their magical run from a year ago? Only time will tell as chaos usually reigns this time of year, but the matchups are mostly favorable for the Bruins, and their big-game experience should help them starting Thursday in Sacramento.

E-mail Lee at jlee3@media.ucla.edu with any comments.