2009 NCAA Tournament Thread

[Karlifornia]

Originally Posted by Karlifornia

You've got a one man team going up against the best team in college basketball. I find that somewhat interesting.

Ok, nm. Time to find something else to do.

[Radii]

I guess its unlikely to matter at this point, but possessions where Blake Griffin doesn't touch the ball just baffle me.

[DaddyTorgo]

yeah - if you've got a one-man team at least let him touch it to try to get the D to collapse on him to create shots for others

[Logan]

How many games does Oklahoma win if Blake Griffin doesn't exist?

[Groundhog]

To be fair, they are a better "team" than they've looked today, from other games I've seen of them. Today though it's been the Blake Griffin show and yeah, there is no excuse for him not touching the ball at all down the floor. They should have one and only one play in their playbook today - give the ball to Griffin in the post and clear out.

[Radii]

UNC should have had ty lawson sitting on the ball for 30 seconds starting at the 7 minute mark when it was a 19 point game. It might have been a 12 point game with 3 minutes left instead of 4+. Definitely Lawson time the rest of the way though, with a shot by Ellington here and there for the win.

[panerd]

Thought this one was a lost cause but OU +7 looks possible.

[Radii]

did that commercial really just happen?

[Lathum]

Originally Posted by Radii

did that commercial really just happen?

awesome

[panerd]

Vegas apperently thinks it over they already opened the UNC/Nova line at 6.5

[Radii]

That commercial really did just happen.

[Radii]

nova/UNC is going to be a great matchup. I'm very much worried about that one, they are built much more like the teams that have given Carolina a lot of trouble this year. I'm encouraged to see that UNC has decided to play defense in the last two rounds, if that continues they probably cannot be stopped. Big if though.

[ColtCrazy]

Originally Posted by Noop

Tom Izzo is a great coach.

+1

Living in Southern Indiana, I had arguments with a few friends (and Louisville supporters) that MSU matched up well with Louisville (great guards, strong interior game) and that Izzo would outcoach Pitino because he would keep MSU disciplined and keep them from playing a Cardinal style of game. Izzo has always impressed me as a coach. Here's hoping for a Michigan St./Villanova final!

[Noop]

ACC pride baby!

[Radii]

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

[Schmidty]

Originally Posted by Radii

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

Congrats Radii.

[duckman]

What a letdown...

[Radii]

Seth Curry is transferring to Duke

[Groundhog]

Originally Posted by Radii

Seth Curry is transferring to Duke

Well now. That's interesting.

[RedKingGold]

Originally Posted by Radii

nova/UNC is going to be a great matchup. I'm very much worried about that one, they are built much more like the teams that have given Carolina a lot of trouble this year. I'm encouraged to see that UNC has decided to play defense in the last two rounds, if that continues they probably cannot be stopped. Big if though.

Yup, I just hope it's a good game. No doubt we're going to have to play a near-perfect game to beat UNC. Hopefully, 'Nova's got one (or two) more strong games left in us.

Just remember, we're the underdogs here.

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by Radii

Seth Curry is transferring to Duke

Out of all the schools out there...

[spleen1015]

Originally Posted by MizzouRah

Out of all the schools out there...

... he picked the best one.

Woohoo! I was surprised to see this news.

[SportsDino]

Personally I could care less about the rest of the Big Ten, Spartans in Final Four, mwahahahaha!

Izzo did just like I hoped, beat the sloppiness out of the team, convinced them to play his style of game and play smart, and beat a tough Louisville team. I think his strategy to start the game was great (sort of punching the other team in the mouth and not letting it establish its style of game) and he tweaked it in the second half to close the deal.

A great game out of the entire team, very few sloppy mistakes that have plagued the other games. I think Raymar Morgan wasn't ready to play with the mask and that threw him off early. Also Suton looked to pass too much at the very start, but then turned on the 'score points' switch and kept us in the right spot throughout the first half.

My bracket unfortunately is dominated by someone who has the same picks as me, but I do have the entire final four correct. Now I'm just rooting for the Spartans to pull it out (maybe a Nova upset of UNC would be nice even though its in my useless bracket that UNC makes it).

[Wolfpack]

Originally Posted by Noop

ACC pride baby!

Originally Posted by Radii

WOOOOOOOOOOOOOHOOOOOOOOOOOOOO

*polite golf clap* Thank you for representing the conference well this year. You can stop winning now.

[MizzouRah]

Originally Posted by spleen1015

... he picked the best one.

Woohoo! I was surprised to see this news.

Damn you spleen!

[Chief Rum]

Does it seem like certain looking players always end up at the same university?

For instance, Michigan State always seems like they have a guy who looks like this...







Or how about Duke?







Pitt?







Zags?







Arizona? (Here's one prototype against another...)







Georgetown?







Any others I am missing?

Not saying any of these teams have ALL players like this. They just always seem to have at LEAST one.

[Passacaglia]

Originally Posted by Passacaglia

Man that ball seemed to hang on the rim forever.

Wonder how much Final Four tickets shoot up in price if MSU makes it.

Well they definitely went up from yesterday. As the MSU game was ending, you could have got into all the games for $150, now it looks like it would set you back $335. Then again, the price is probably guaranteed to go up once the teams are known, anyway.

[Kodos]

Glad to see MSU make it to the Final Four. Here's hoping they win the whole thing. Luckily, they are one of the rival Big Ten teams that I can root for. Illinois, Ohio State, Michigan, and Purdue would be a different story.

[Dr. Sak]

Originally Posted by Kodos

Glad to see MSU make it to the Final Four. Here's hoping they win the whole thing. Luckily, they are one of the rival Big Ten teams that I can root for. Illinois, Ohio State, Michigan, and Purdue would be a different story.

Don't forget about Penn State being in the Final Four...of the NIT

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by Dr. Sak

Don't forget about Penn State being in the Final Four...of the NIT

Baylor has continued their run as well, making it to the semifinals of the NIT. If only that team would have woke up a few games sooner during conference play.

[Dr. Sak]

Yeah they really took it to Virginia Tech, it was quite impressive how they keep winning games on the road.

[Kodos]

Originally Posted by Dr. Sak

Don't forget about Penn State being in the Final Four...of the NIT

My brother went to PSU, so I always root for them! They're my second-favorite college football team (to IU, of course).

[Young Drachma]

Not surprised by Seth Curry's decision and really after a year at Liberty, you can't blame him. That Duke degree is useful and it's close to the family and I suspect that played a part.

The Coaches Guitar Hero commercial is hilarious.

[MizzouRah]

Forgot it was Seth... ok, no biggie then.

[ColtCrazy]

Originally Posted by Kodos

Glad to see MSU make it to the Final Four. Here's hoping they win the whole thing. Luckily, they are one of the rival Big Ten teams that I can root for. Illinois, Ohio State, Michigan, and Purdue would be a different story.

I have to admit I liked Michigan St. as well (after IU too). I usually root for them in other games and probably have seem them play IU live more than any other Big Ten team. I don't mind Wisconsin either.

Ohio St. is my most hated Big Ten team. Didn't mind seeing Siena knock them out at all.

[Julio Riddols]

Indiana does have a hell of a recruiting class coming in with 5 guys in the top 150 at least.. The Big Ten should be a lot stronger when they start to come together. I'm excited to see how our own version of the Fab 5 does.

[Butter]

Just to balance this thread a bit, Ohio State is my favorite Big Ten team, and my least favorite is Indiana. Nothing like seeing them have a nice down year, and watching all those forlorn faces when the fans couldn't believe they were getting pounded time after time in Assembly Hall. Have to enjoy it now while the enjoying's good, I'm sure Crean will have them back near the top soon enough.

[Kodos]

It will just make the return to the top of the Big Ten all the sweeter.

[Dr. Sak]

The only time I really couldn't root for the Hoosiers is when Mike Davis was the coach. I couldn't stand the guy.

[RedKingGold]

Tom Crean is the shiz. I was saddened by his loss from the Big East (as I think Buzz is another "Larry Coker").

He'll have Indiana a national power again within the next two or three years.

[Dr. Sak]

Originally Posted by Mizzou B-ball fan

Baylor has continued their run as well, making it to the semifinals of the NIT. If only that team would have woke up a few games sooner during conference play.

Baylor won last night as did Penn State. They meet in the finals on Thursday.

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by Dr. Sak

Baylor won last night as did Penn State. They meet in the finals on Thursday.

I can't imagine Baylor fans having to deal with two crushing losses in tournament finals in the same year. I hope they win for that reason.

[Butter]

I would hardly call a loss in the finals of the NIT "crushing".

[Mizzou B-ball fan]

Originally Posted by Butter_of_69

I would hardly call a loss in the finals of the NIT "crushing".

Nitpicking aside, my point was that getting within a win of two tourney titles and not landing either one would be a pretty hard pill to swallow.

[cartman]

Another brilliant offering from The Onion:

Cheering Fans, Thrilling NCAA Tournament Disgust BCS Officials | The Onion - America's Finest News Source

Cheering Fans, Thrilling NCAA Tournament Disgust BCS Officials

DETROIT—Claiming that determining an unquestioned national champion through a playoff system "went against the very idea of sporting competition," and that the sheer exuberance of college basketball fans was "a shocking and nauseating display of everything wrong with collegiate athletics," top BCS officials roundly condemned the NCAA Tournament Monday.

"I frankly cannot even believe what I'm seeing, and I can't stomach the sight for long," said a pale, trembling Jack Swarbrick, the Notre Dame athletic director who, along with the commissioners of the major conferences, manages the complicated system of polls and computer rankings that make up the Bowl Championship Series in college football. "The elegant logic of actually having teams play one another instead of having a council of their betters select which team is superior to which—that is not what sports is all about."

"And the fans...urgghh...simply enjoy their teams' triumphs or mourn their defeats. Where are the heated arguments? Where are the unsettled disputes that will fester forever?" said Swarbrick, a sheen of feverish sweat curdling on his face. "Oh, God, I think I got vomit on my tie."

"It's the joy, the sheer joy on the fans' pathetic joyful faces and in their insipid happy voices that fills me with such loathing—loathing for the certainty they will feel when all is said and done and they know exactly who is the best, and hatred for the pure joy they will feel because of it," Pac-10 conference commissioner Larry Scott said as he panted, slumped down in a wheelchair. "Mark my words, their certainty regarding exactly how good a team is or isn't will never be allowed to corrupt the BCS—and neither will their joy."

As of press time, Scott had been hospitalized due to nausea and bile scarring in his throat.

Other notable BCS executives have either expressed disgust or been involved in disgust-related incidents in the weeks since the tournament began. The White House has asked several conference commissioners to stop calling after 10 p.m. or while drunk. And retching, unstable statistician Kenneth Massey, a sports-ratings expert whose calculations play a part in the BCS rankings, was arrested by police in Detroit last week when he attempted to chain himself to the gates of Ford Field, all the while screaming that both stochastic and determinist calculations prove that Xavier could not have beaten Wisconsin in the second round.

"It's wrong. It's just wrong," Swarbrick said. "I haven't been able to keep food or fluids down since this...this March Madness began. Everywhere I go, I hear the cheering, the talk, and I see that goddamned bracket everywhere. Why? Why are all these people so happy after watching a championship tournament? How can they be happy without a network of polls and computers run by an arbitrary board of university executives to tell them who the champion really is?"

"Imagine if we'd let this happen—if we had let, say, Boise State play for the championship after all the filthy happiness and cheering they inspired," a vomit-drenched, glassy-eyed Scott said from his hospital bed. "College football as we know it barely survived them upsetting Oklahoma. If we had let teams compete in a—a—a playoff, as they call it, the resulting combination of joy and true competition would have gone against everything the BCS stands for."

[DataKing]

Pure genius. Gotta love The Onion.

[Kodos]

Originally Posted by Dr. Sak

Baylor won last night as did Penn State. They meet in the finals on Thursday.

It's down to the wire! WE ARE... PENN STATE!

[hoopsguy]

Way to go, PSU.

[RedKingGold]

Go Penn State!

[Dr. Sak]

Penn State still doesn't have that killer instinct but I was real happy that Cornley went out a winner. The guy stuck with the program during its lowest times. I think somewhere Geary Claxton is smiling too.

They lose Cornley and Stanley (I got caught jerking it in the library) Pringle...but the young kids stepped it up in the NIT. The future is bright, no juniors at all. So its a young team again next year, but the Big Ten is improving. I hope they can some how convince Battle's younger brother to come play there.

Most of all I am happy for Coach Dechellis...a lot of people wanted his head last year. I'm glad the school stuck with them. Way to go Penn State!

Edit: Now I am pulling for the Spartans!