The official tournament time thread
 

Championship week underway.

It looks like San Diego came to play, a win by them screws someone big time.

Here's hoping that Cleveland State can pull off a miracle to knock off Butler tonight!

George Mason returns to the tourney after beating W&M last night.

I think they could pull a 1st round upset depending on who they draw, but they don't have the shooters that they had in their final 4 run so I don't see much more than that happening.

I just had a personal depressing thought. It's been 20 years since NC State has had a team that was even considered a threat to win the national championship. The 1988 team was a #3 seed but got upset by Murray State in the first round that year. The 1989 team was a #8 that nearly beat Georgetown (it was a blocking foul on Mourning, dammit!), but it all went into the crapper after that. DFL in a 12-team ACC this year. At least the Les Robinson Invitational technically doesn't exist anymore. :(

tought to recruit against UNC and Duke

I'm surprised the University of Spoiled Daughters actually managed to make the NCAA mens basketball tournament.

did you go there?

Lame title

What is the University of Spoiled Daughters?

U of San Diego, I imagine.

St. Mary's may have shot themselves in the foot with their double-OT exit from the conference tourney. Hopefully they get an at-large.

thank you for your excellent contribution!

PAC-10 tournament hasn't started yet :)

Were they on probation in 1991?

University of San Diego.

It's got that nickname because of the high proportion of wealthy girls who attend there allegedly living off of their parents' income.

Absolutely gorgeous campus, though.

Dayton squeaks past St. Louis in OT today in the Atlantic 10 Tourney to make it to round 2 vs. Xavier tomorrow at noon. Dayton wins, I think they are in the NCAAs regardless of results following that game. Dayton loses, they are NIT bound. It is the very definition of a bubble game. Hopefully Xavier sleepwalks through some of it, as they don't really need it... but they have owned UD of late, so I am not optimistic.

Yeah, I almost went there to play football actually.

You are forgetting just how hot most of those spoiled daughters are.

They were on probation in 1990 and didn't go to the tournament that year (that was the year of the infamous debacle when State became the first #1 team in ACC tournament history to lose to a #8 when State got trampled by Bob Wade's Maryland team). Valvano was ousted in 1990.

A lot of State fans are real, real bitter about the last 20 years. They have pretty much castigated everyone from the News and Observer (which they view as a Carolina propaganda organ) to the university to every coach who followed Valvano (now including Lowe) for never getting things back to the good ol' days.

It did not help that when State went downhill, Duke was in the ascendant. It also didn't help that ESPN was becoming the media force it has become. Guess what the featured rivalry was when ESPN made its rise? Duke-Carolina. If ESPN came up earlier in the 1970s-early 80s, it very well could have been State-Carolina as aside from the 1978 Final Four, Duke was a nonfactor. I don't doubt that Duke and Carolina are worthy of their positions and their rivalry, but I do think the heightened focus on it has pretty much sucked all the oxygen out of NC State, Wake, and just about everyone else in the ACC. Time was Carolina was the sole constant in the league while various other teams (State, Duke, Maryland, Tech, Wake) would rise up to challenge for a number of years before settling back again. Now, it's Duke, Carolina, and not much else and it doesn't seem likely to change for the foreseeable future, probably until K retires and then we get to see how Duke weathers that storm. Maryland had a good stretch, but that seemed to coincide with UNC's falloff under Guthridge and D'oh!. Once Roy came back to UNC and got the program back up again, Maryland seemed to fall back pretty quickly.

I do begin to wonder whether we have a better chance of winning the football title in the ACC than the basketball one (and that's saying something given the struggles in both programs the last few years). I guess it's my pessimistic side, but I've kind of let it go and settled for the mediocrity in some respects because as I've gotten older and have had so many life changes, I've come to realize that getting my blood into a boil over this fall from grace by State athletics in general doesn't do me any good and in the grand scheme matters a hill of beans.

Technically, this should all be true of the Hurricanes as well, but dammit they're winning right now, so they bring me much joy and happiness and I'll gladly follow them to the ends of the earth. :D

Wasn't the Maryland upset 1989? I'm pretty sure Valvano's last game was in the 1990 tournament and NCSU was a 6 seed against Ga Tech, who went on to win the conference tournament (I'm a GT fan).

I was thinking of the next year and the Monroe-Guggliotta team. I think Monroe dropped something silly like 48 on GT that year and then they spanked the Jackets in the first round of the ACCT. I thought that team was nationally ranked, but couldn't remember if they were on probation or not.

Yep, you're right. It was 1989. 1990 was V's last team and of course they struggled. I don't know why I thought State was an eight seed that year (1989) in the NCAA. I guess it's because G'Town was a #1, but I guess I forgot they met them a round later in the Sweet 16.

The 1991 team was the last year of Corchiani and Monroe and Gugliotta was beginning to come into his own. That was Les Robinson's first team and the last NCAA team State had until 2001.

At any rate, it could be argued that State has been in shambles since they lost to Murray State in that first round game in 1988. While one didn't cause the other necessarily, it definitely seems to have been a long slow retreat since then. They did advance further in 1989 and 1991, but the belief that NC State could win another national championship has been heavily eroded in that time. It's much more a hope of getting back to that time now.

Wake Forest was *so* close, it really sucks that Dave Odom left, and of course Skip Prosser's death last year was just terrible.

From 1995-2005, Wake was a 1 seed or 2 seed 5 times, and made the tournament 8 out of 11 years. The problem is the last 3 times in a row that they were a 2 seed they were upset in the 2nd round. If they had been able to make a final four with Tim Duncan or Chris Paul there they'd probably be viewed a lot differently today.

Comparatively, Maryland has been 'ok' a bunch with 4-7 seeds, but they had a *really* strong 3-year peak with Juan Dixon with a final four one year, and a championship the next. Wake was(and maybe is if this new coach can pick up where Skip left off well?) really the most poised team to try to challenge Duke/UNC long term.

Though right now it seems that Clemson under Oliver Purnell is the most likely team to try to challenge for awhile... but, its Clemson, so I'm hopeful but don't have very high expectations.



I really miss the days when UNC/NC State was a bigger game than UNC/Duke :D

Humbug. You can make a case for competing with UNC being difficult, but Duke only helps NC State by giving them greater TV exposure. They don't go after the same recruits at all. Duke has a grand total of 0 players from North Carolina on their roster. No one in North Carolina wants to get anywhere near Duke. The only guy they have from ACC country is Nolan Smith from MD.

Really, State's problem isn't UNC and Duke; it is the host of quality mid-major programs in VA and NC to whom they keep losing good recruits. And that isn't just a problem for State -- I think the problem is popping up among all the second-tier programs in the major conferences.

Thanks for Herb he's doing wonders out at ASU and he doesn't have to were a red sports coat either. ;)

I know nobody cares. But FUCK.

UConn needs to get it in gear

So what phantom referee assisted call does everyone think UCLA will get tonight to beat a Bay Area team?

I was actually looking for this game. Today's Bubble Watch: http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/bubblewatch?id=77 did a little comparasion of Dayton and Kentucky that I thought was pretty interesting, and I saw they were playing Xavier close ealry in the second half... but it wasn't on TV here :(

I've watched about 3 or 4 Pac 10 games this year and I really hope none of their officials are officiating in the big dance..

dola

Not completely serious, but I've seen some terrible calls at the end of games by Pac 10 officials. Let the players decide who wins please..

total job call by the Pac-10 refs in our game.

we have to have the worst refs in the world.

Pac 10 officials have had a rough year, no doubt.

34 more for Joe Alexander. I've never seen a guy improve so much over the course of a year.

I yelled when I saw that dunk.. That was a nice exclamation point to that win.

Maybe Gottlieb will admit they're a tourney team now....

Big 11 basketball is really hard to watch

Kenyon Martin

Funny that that's another Huggins guy. I definitely think Huggs has played a huge role in Alexander's development. Aside from a spectacular dunk every couple games or so, JA never looked comfortable in Beilein's system.

We can officially take Florida off the bubble. It's 46-23 Alabama at the half.

Good. UCLA's kryptonite needs not be in the tournament

Tough loss today for UAB. I think the Blazers & Mike Davis are out.

Houston & UAB are the #2 & #3 seeds in CUSA, right? If so, the path to a conference tournament title for Memphis just got easier.

Is Villanova in? I don't think they deserve it, but most of those crappy .500 BCS teams seem to make it in the tourney.

West Virginia is definitely in with a big win tonight.

Dayton should be out with a loss to Xavier...but their RPI is awful good.

Bad loss for Baylor against Colorado today. It may have hurt their at-large chances. Hopefully they still get a nod because of the huge turnaround by Coach Drew...getting them to over 20 wins.

Florida's out...excellent.

Should be another good NCAA tournament. So many of these teams are separated by one shot or one call or one bounce. It's what makes college hoops so great.

Days off where you can watch basketball all day are the best :)

For the better Aussies in Div 1, I have my fingers crossed that St. Mary's makes it, but it was a bad loss in their conference tourney. They'll be sweating it. Some big wins this year, but some pretty dissapointing losses as well.

Ogilvy and Vandy looked good in their win, Ogilvy in particular was awesome with a new career high scoring total.

Bad break for Aaron Bruce and Baylor. Fingers crossed for them.

I think St. Marys gets in easy. They were ranked most of the year and several teams that could have hurt them got knocked out early in their conference tournaments

Fixed.

Don't know that it's so clear cut. Gonzaga losing to USD really might have screwed the Gaels. Does the WCC get 3 teams in? I doubt it.

Most every projection has St. Mary's currently going in. With a whole host of other bubble teams getting wiped out today (Florida, Maryland, Baylor, Arizona State...), it's very likely that the WCC is getting three bids.

Arizona has looked pretty good. I think they are a lock with the other teams going down early

Ole Miss continues their slide, losing to Georgia in OT 97-95.

Wife & son are now off to the Georgia Dome for the afternoon session of the SEC tournament. (I'm here at home, partly for work & mostly because it made single session scalper prices a good bit more tolerable).

Tennessee started fast but now only leads South Carolina by 1 at the half.
UNC leads FSU by 8 with a couple of minutes left in the game.

Jon would you mind a periodic update of the Arkansas game, at least the first half? I have class to teach until 3:05 pm our time. I might see if I can get a gametracker up or even a video stream, but I doubt I will be able to.

UNC wasn't spectacular but they weren't ever in real trouble either past the 8 minute mark of the 1st half. Movin on.