Gonzaga pulling away. That's my team, baby! (for this tournament)

do you realize Portland is about 350 miles from Gonzaga?

Well Nova is our first gambling buzzer beater of the tournament. What an exciting ending that I of course ended up on the wrong side of.

Stitt jogged it up the court though... drive to the basket and go for the 70% shot instead of the 20% one.

Me too. What a range of emotions. Go from literally giving up the bet and rooting for American to a meaningless uncontested layup costing me.

Yeah. I was hoping some back-up nobody would throw up a 3 at the buzzer for Nova to cover.

No. You're just an incredible pussy.

I wish I can redo my bracket and take Nova out of the Final Four. Although I'm a Wildcat homer, they've just become too careless with the ball and shooting jump shots to make any deep run. They'll be lucky to make the Sweet Sixteen as a protected seed.

What exactly would you recommend? Especially as Lathum pointed out, Gonzaga is playing 350 miles from their campus in another state. Hasn't a key reward of earning a high seed been that you get seeded in a favorable region?

Everyone loves to point out that UNC gets to play a lot of games in North Carolina, which is entirely true. Of course they usually have to earn a 1 or 2 seed to get that preference, and a hosting site has to exist in the state(of course, there are more available hosting sites in North Carolina for the south region than there are in georgia, virginia, tennessee, south carolina, alabama and mississippi combined. But anyway, Greensboro is 50 miles from Chapel hill and Durham. Should Duke and UNC be sent 850 miles away to Miami instead? What about Charlotte, that's 150 miles away from their campuses.

So is the rule same state? 100 miles? You can only go to the 2nd closest hosting site available to you?

So what's fair?

I still think they're fine. They have a home game against VCU/UCLA which they should win. Duke or Texas is very beatable still.

One weird stat from the game. Villanova shot 29 free throws to American's 5. I know some of those FT came at the end of the game, but that's a huge gap.

ugh - early fouling by sanders is not good.

Two FTs in first half....

10 of the 29 were in the last 1:30.

Nova went to the hole a ton more in the second half and that got them a bunch of free throws, they were in the penalty early.

And that's the press i'm talking about.

Wow, Sanders just got really lucky that wasn't his second

Di I just hear that right, Sanders had 40 blocked shots in a 3 game CAA tourny?:eek:

Come on Rodriguez.

Damnit.

He had an amazing tourney, but he only had 11 blocked shots (7 in the championship game) according to cbs's stats.

Ah. I see 39 rebounds - maybe that's what it was?

yeah, UCLA's press does look good

Man, this is a slow, ugly game. Still, I think it's required watching here in Richmond tonight :)

SI

Er, what press? That's not a press producing the turnovers.

I guess you could call it a Half-Court Press, but it's really just aggressive man D in my opinion.

I swear I heard him say 40, thats why it caught my attention.

Is he an upperclassman? Maybe in CAA tournaments lifetime

Definitely ;).

I'm just fucking with you dude.

You're a CAA guy I go to a PAC 10 school...

He's a sophomore.

Dola: he had 95 total blocks last year and 88 this - i'm not sure what you heard ;).

He is a blocking machine.

I don't really have a problem with the Gonzaga game. That's a hefty distance and we can't send every team across the country.

The North Carolina thing is getting old, but I know why the NCAA does it. I guess I don't understand why a 3 seed like Villanova gets a home game, or an 8 seed like Ohio State. Siena really gets screwed in that one and I wonder if that would have happened if it was UCLA as the 9 seed.

I liked the old system that was essentially all neutral sites. I think the crowd dynamic is unique and it makes it fair for both sides. Leave the home games for the regular season, the tournament should be who has the better team that day, not who is playing at home.

OHHHHHHHHH!!!!!

Neutral site games in the first two rounds where there is usually a clear underdog wouldn't be all that neutral at all, because the "neutral" crowd will always cheer for the underdog.

Wow...Binghamton only down 7. I thought they were done.

So far the Ill/WKU game has been bad.... really bad.

There has been one nice block so far and that's about it.

Oh and a three pointer was just made. Sweet. 7-4 almost five minutes in.

Looks like a game at the YMCA to me.

fixed

So let teams play home games is the solution? Come on. Neutral site games are fairly neutral. The crowd doesn't usually turn till an underdog gives the fans good reason to believe their can be an upset. The bigger schools always have the larger contingent at the games and the advantage early.

Neutral sites are neutral. It's fair to both sides. Letting 8 seed Ohio State play a home game is a fuckin joke.

What neutral sites? You mean when if you were sent to the west region you played on all west sites that were pre-determined? So a team like Gonzaga, the highest seed in the tournament(along with UW) got rewarded and put in the west region, thus putting them at one of the western sites and changing absolutely nothing.

The sites in the east or the south still go to the top teams from those geographic areas. Perhaps the new pod system(and btw I'm not a fan of the new pod system, I liked it the way it was just fine) generates a few more games each year where one team is decidedly closer to home than other teams, but the higher seeds ending up with the games closer to their campuses is nothing new at all.

EDIT: You weren't the one mentioning the gonzaga game, just read that now(though I still like the point for those that were ;) )

I've got all the games right so far but one, the Butler game. Two games which seem to be about 50/50 between everyone is the obvious two games tonight. I've got WKU and UCLA winning. I originally had Illinois until Frazier was officially out for the game.

So far a couple nice threes for WKU. We'll see if they can keep it up.

How about lets just have empty gyms for tourney games?

the Larry Sanders show just took a commercial break


couldn't resist

Only after we move the World Series to a Neutral Site.

I've been wondering how long it would take for someone to do it ;).

I hear they are building a baseball stadium on the Jersey Shore

Illinois better be carefull, from what I have seen of them they aren't a come from behind team

Sweet, a good old V..... C...... U..... song.

These 3-pointers are going to be the death of VCU.

These three pointers by WKU. Whoa. Backing up to shoot that three when he had a wide open layup.... and draining it to make it an 8 point game, then Illinois misses the wide open layup. Hah. Man.

At least the game is semi exciting now.

The old system was random though. Sometimes a team got a favorable spot but it wasn't predetermined. This system has the committee actively giving home games to certain teams.

The one great thing about the tournament was how completely fair it was. Everyone was treated the same. Now with the selection committee and questionable seeding, it's just added a little too much WWE for my liking.

Rodriguez is clearly outmanned in this game. Not good for VCU. Rozelle should be playing more.

Time for me to crawl into my hole.

*nods*

gotcha. I'm perfectly cool with that. I do prefer the old system, though honestly I think its just more of a symmetry thing than anything. It doesn't feel right having teams in the "west region" playing their first two rounds on the east coast, etc.

VCU needs to tighten this up here and get back into the game

SI

Glad to see Illinois representing the Big 10 quite nicely.

WKU won't shoot this well all game but they should have no problem holding a ten point lead the whole game.

Michael Jordan turns it over.

The 2nd half will be all about Eric Maynor. If he can get into that higher gear VCU can make a game of it (although if Rodriguez continues to hand the ball to UCLA it won't matter), but if Maynor can't do that they're screwed.

the double pit chect Axe commercial annoys the hell out of me

Or just give byes to the teams who draw the best ratings on TV.

Lathum:

On the CAA board a guy posted this:

I hope so, I feel suckered into VCU +8

Bad call IMO, the kid leaned right into the offensive player. Ah, well. Charges sometimes ruin a game with how much the refs call them at times.

HAHAHAHA..

The "Total Package" made TV.

That is the band director for VCU. He's an absolute maniac. I find watching him and the VCU band to be more entertaining than the game sometimes.

man do I feel better

If Sanders picks up his 3rd foul within the first 2 or 3 minutes as he often does this could be bad as well.

UCLA is holding court so far and they are playing terrible. So far so good

Missed opportunity after missed opportunity.

That's not how you get an upset.

Oh goodie, bug is here - this should get fun ;).

Nah, I'm pretty sedated on cold medicine right now so it can't be bad

But if Burgess keeps hitting those 3's, it might get ugly :)

Great..Blake Griffin absolutely pwning Morgan State, and then he hurts his elbow. I'm hoping really hard that it's not serious, cause if it is, my Top Gun chances are screwed.

:).

If VCU keeps this close, Grant to UVa?

Oh and if UCLA keeps getting mugged, you'll know. For now, I like that they are being allowed to play

I think UVA would be ecstatic to get Grant win or lose in this game. I think if VCU lost the CAA Tourney UVA would still be ecstatic to have him.

I'm not sure he takes that job though.

He turned down an SEC job... although I forget where.. last year or the year before.

But some think this is the year for him to leave because there could be a big drop after Maynor leaves.

Hah - the fat guy with the ram horns is a well known guy on the caa message boards.

Ugh - Rodriguez in for Maynor - what a trade-down.

Maynor looked gassed on the bench just now

I wouldn't be too worried about that. This is how VCU always palys. They full-court press the entire game and Maynor plays a large number of minutes. They're one of the better condition teams you'll see.

Does VCU always full court press? If not, it's kind of a bad coaching move against this UCLA team

They always full court press for 40 minutes.

this post would be really funny if it wasn't serious .


no slight on Bug, I know he in sick and probably didnt read the whole thread

Nope, more of a general inquiry....


Dont feel like reading through this thread :) Just that UCLA has some quick guards and generally makes the extra pass

Geez, box out Nixon

Travel by Gwynn

Yeah, he's just saying I've said it like 5 times in my pimping of VCU ;).


And you mentioned mugging earlier - UCLA is getting away with as much mugging as VCU. I actually thinking the reffing has been very consistent which I'm not used to with CAA refs.

I have WKU in both my money brackets!

In the messageb oard world, I've learned that anyone who says the reffing was fair probably is getting the benefits of the calls :)

No worries, I dont think it's unfair, just seems like UCLA tends to get more of the ticky tact fouls (like the one on maynors)

Gah! DC with his forth!

That was a lame foul call too

like that one

I think you're completely biased then. This game has been ref'd very fair and in fact UCLA is the one that is getting shots in the bonus right now.

Collison has 4 fouls - that could change this game.

Collison pulls up...shoots...it gets stuffed right back in his face! But the refs have called a foul on Hill! Oh, my!
;)

Poor Drago, though he probably deserved it for pushing his gf earlier this year

What an F'ing acting job.

Not on the fall, but with the neck holding. He was nowhere near that dude's neck.

Wow - nice shot by Holliday.

Ok - I'll say it.

That was a lame foul call based on how the rest of this game has been called.

I have the bootleg DVD of some of Lavin's teams in Maples. Weren't you a student then ;)

Is this where they're going to start whistling everything because of the supposed rough foul by Gwynn?

don't be such a homer ;)

What I wouldn't give to have us go back to actually calling fouls as they are written. It seems so arbitrary- a little touch is ok unless it's a star player. One player leaning on another under the basket is ok three times down the court but not the fourth. I wish they just would spend a year or two slowing the game down horribly, calling everything, from the NBA down so that it's not cool to just camp on players, call it "good defense" and reset how people think of fouls.

SI

I think that VCU letting it stretch back to 9 with 8:15 left is the end of this. They pulled within reach and then let it go again. There's only so many times they can shrink the lead against this team.

that was a weak foul call on Shipp there

It seems that they're starting to whistle everything - on both sides.

My best guess is it is to "get the game under control" because of what was really a pretty mild foul by Gwynn ut because 41 for UCLA acted like he just had a tracheotomy they had to "get things under control."

Um, wow.

What a ridiculous move by that Morgan St. player.

Mild foul? Sure he didnt need to flop (but he is a Euro), but it was clearing an intentional elbow thrown

VCU has missed the front end of at least 2 or 3 1 and 1's.

Again - can't win upset games like that.