It's because they know that the team is not as good as their ranking, plain and simple. No #1 seed has ever lost, if you team is really that good, you want a #1 seed. Numbers say you are guaranteed to move on to the next round. Now, if you believe, like some do on here, that this team has somehow blindly falling into their ranking and are not deserving of it, yeah, you are scared as hell of a #1 seed and the first in history to go down to a 16.
What I really don't understand is hoping for a 2 or especially a 3 seed over a 1. 2s and 3s are losing a little more regularly now and if you really don't think your team is deserving, why would you want to play a significantly stronger first round opponent?
So yeah, it's just like the football situation. Even though they are all running around puffing out their chests, they know, deep down they are a bit of a paper tiger. And since they are going to lose first round (or 2nd, whatever they call it now) anyways, might as well lose as a 2 or 3 and not be the first #1.
I will say this though, the way this year has gone, I really don't believe any #1 is truly going to be safe this year. Maybe OU, but other than that, there seems to be a lot of teams out there that if they come out flat, no matter what their seed is, they are going down. I just don't see any great teams out there that really stand out as a complete dominating unit. the parity in college basketball is pretty amazing this year.