2012 NCAA Tournament Thread

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by whomario

i have no problem with them being there in this game though. I really don´t see the problem, for me it´s an integral part of College Basketball that all (D1) athletes/teams have a shot at the tournament one way or another. If the bottom dweller conferences get shut out, you might as well cut D1 to 10 conferences and 150 teams and save everyone the trouble.

If a "traditional power" can´t beat the odds of being in the Top 50% or 25% of it´s conference i fail to see how we should accomodate them by stripping some of theese really small schools of their only shot of making it to the big stage every once in a while.

Oh, I love March and I love the underdogs (unless they're playing Kansas). This particular game has been pretty bad to watch, tho

SI

[Young Drachma]

MVSU is a HBCU, I'm sure this was part of the calculus in having him choose the worse of the two games.

[sterlingice]

I do like their mascot, tho: The Delta Devils is pretty cool

SI

[Young Drachma]

What a depressing finish for MVSU. Goodness gracious. These kids just panicked down the stretch. Only caught last two minutes but goodness.

[spleen1015]

The second half definitely wasn't the stinker the first half was.

[mauchow]

10 of 22 from free throws for MVSU with one of the players who is normally a 70% shooter going 1 for 8. That kid ain't gonna sleep well tonight; well none of them will but him especially.

[britrock88]

I can't wait to see KenPom's win probability graph for this one.

[Young Drachma]

That coach was just as confused as they were, it seems. I mean, your kids choke that bad...you need to calm them down.

Here's a bit of background on MVSU's plight: Mississippi Valley State Delta Devils travel difficult road faced by many HBCUs - men's college basketball - ESPN

[britrock88]

Another fun quirk: Western Kentucky fired their HC, Ken McDonald, after starting 5-11. Ray Harper, the interim coach (previously a title-winning coach in D2 and the NAIA), went 4-7, and the school promoted him to head coach. Since the promotion, he's 7-0.

[bhlloy]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

I do like their mascot, tho: The Delta Devils is pretty cool

SI

I would always choose the Delta Devils in NCAA 2k Hoops games for that reason when I really didn't know much about the sport, they have by far the coolest mascot/color scheme in D1 IMO

So yeah, that wasn't a bad start to the tourney was it?

[ColtCrazy]

Iona out to prove they belong in the tournament.

[Thomkal]

And its all over for Coastal Carolina this season as they lose yet again in the first round of a tournament-this time by 2 points to Old Dominion in the CIT.

[Young Drachma]

No one here has a sister thats an Iona cheerleader, right?

[BYU 14]

Just wow, I turned the BYU game off to watch Justified and Southland and turned it on just to see how bad it would end.......For Iona

Awesome comeback, but now I feel like a shitty fan for giving up!!

[LloydLungs]

Originally Posted by britrock88

Another fun quirk: Western Kentucky fired their HC, Ken McDonald, after starting 5-11. Ray Harper, the interim coach (previously a title-winning coach in D2 and the NAIA), went 4-7, and the school promoted him to head coach. Since the promotion, he's 7-0.

And a fun quirk on top of that -- WKU fired McDonald the day after losing a buzzer-beater to Louisiana-Lafayette. ULL scored the game winning bucket with six men on the court. The possession went on for a good 30 seconds. The refs never figured it out, and nobody on WKU's bench alerted them.

[MacroGuru]

Originally Posted by BYU 14

Just wow, I turned the BYU game off to watch Justified and Southland and turned it on just to see how bad it would end.......For Iona

Awesome comeback, but now I feel like a shitty fan for giving up!!

Don't worry...so do I....I went to bed...

[Ksyrup]

I watched more of it than I otherwise would have, just to see Iona hit 100 points. I think they had 48 points with more than 6 minutes left in the 1st half. They never quite made it...

[spleen1015]

I believe Iona scored more points in the 1st half than either WKU or MVSt did the entire game. Then, they scored less points in the second half than either of those teams did in the 1st half.

Figure that shit out.

[GoldenEagle]

My wife (LSG) is an alum of MVSU. She was rooting for them, but they couldn't pull it out.

[Ksyrup]

Thought it was a class act to see the WKU coach consoling one the MVSU players for what seemed like 5 minutes after the game. I thought it was his own coach, but it turned out to be the WKU coach.

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

Thought it was a class act to see the WKU coach consoling one the MVSU players for what seemed like 5 minutes after the game. I thought it was his own coach, but it turned out to be the WKU coach.

Yeah, my friend in grad school at WKU has been singing his praises for months now. Apparently he's legit and yeah, absolutely kudos to him for that no doubt.

[sterlingice]

Ok, filling out my bracket and below are some random observations:

Overall

• I just don't see the 5-12 upset this year. I guess Long Beach State is the one I can even possibly see. But there isn't a horribly obvious one like we've seenin most year's past
• With Feb Melo out, are the 2s stronger than the 1s? Or at least with a better chance to advance. Kentucky has a huge edge vs Duke but Mizz/MSU seems a push, OSU better than Syracuse?, and UNC is better than KU but it's pretty close and KU gets it as a home game in St Louis. Then again, I realize it never plays out where 1/2 plays.
• Like 1s and 2s, I think I like the 5s more than the 4s, as a whole

South

• Wichita State got screwed. I would have loved to see them with any of the 3 seeds instead of sitting there with Kentucky facing them.
• Baylor or Duke? And if you swap the 6/11 and 7/10 from the Midwest, do we even worry about it? I think Baylor is a really low risk #3 to advance.
• Xavier-Notre Dame was the game in this region that I just spent a lot of time staring at and eventually had to just pick one. I eventually went with Xavier. It's a shame because I think a stronger 7/10 would have a really good chance at a 2nd round upset of Duke.

Midwest

• The odds of Georgetown making it out of their quad is pretty low. Belmont and NC State definitely could beat them but I think they beat San Diego State.
• The quad with Temple/Cal-USF and Michigan/Ohio is just nondescript. It's so vanilla and bland. No one thinks the winner will do anything and on half of the regional articles I read, no one even mentions any of the teams. Usually the 4/13 and 5/12 has some sort of sexy underdog (VCU) or a team which can make noise (Vandy).
• Can't say I'm sad about Kansas's draw. UNC as a #1 seed and in St Louis. It's not our best team- probably only our 4th or 5th best in the last 10 years- but a really nice bracket.

West

• Now this is the bizarro 4/5/12/13 I'm talking about that is the opposite of the Midwest. You have perennial tourney underachiever New Mexico facing off against popular upset pick Long Beach State. On the other side, Pitino seems to have lost his tourney magic since going to Louisville but Davidson isn't really a team that you can see upsetting them. But would any of these four teams out of here surprise you?
• I don't have a handle at all on Marquette.
• What can Murray State do?
• At the end of the day, tho, I can't pick against Tom Izzo, particularly with this good of a team. And Mizzou is really good so it looks like a boring 1-2 bracket.
• It's criminal that Kenpom #9 Memphis and #15 St Louis play in the first round. And as an 8-9.

East

• Vandy has the highest potential swing of anyone in the tourney. They probably won't lose to Harvard but could. However, would anyone be surprised if the hot shooting is there and they win the whole region
• Florida State has a surprisingly easy quad. Probably the easiest non-1/2 seed to advance to the Sweet 16, even with their inconsistent play this season and lowest pythag of any #3 seed.
• This might be the hardest region to pick of any as 1-5 seem like good choices. Ohio State, Wisconsin, and Syracuse are all in the top 8 of Kenpom while Florida State and Vandy are hot conference winners. Hard to pick upsets here in the first couple of rounds with such a topheavy bracket but this is where bracket contests will be won and lost in the Sweet 16 and Elite 8 here (along with the Final 4, of course).
• With this being the bracket with Gonzaga, let's all bow our heads in a moment of March Madness silence. It's a shame Gus Johnson and CBS were not able to come to an agreement after last year. He has the most iconic calls of the last 20 years and he should be a part of the tournament, NCAA basketball's biggest stage.

SI

[Samdari]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

[*]The odds of Georgetown making it out of their quad is pretty low. Belmont and NC State definitely could beat them but I think they beat San Diego State.

Wow, you must be from the Doug Gottlieb school of evaluating Big East teams?

Georgetown has quietly been a top-10 team all season. Their draw? What's known as a "free pass"

I find it funny you used "NC State can beat" in a sentence. They are in the tournament as a result of their demonstrated ability to play tournament caliber teams and lose.

[sterlingice]

No one says I'm right. I'm just throwing it out there

SI

[Radii]

I agree with everything you're saying about KU/UNC and the midwest in general. My confidence with UNC... confidence may not be exactly the right word... comfort level with UNC is that I believe they are more talented than anyone in the country but perhaps Kentucky. They're inconsistent and don't always play up to their talent level, but I really feel like with this team it hardly matters who they play. If they play up to their potential no one is beating them outside of Kentucky, not even Kansas in St Louis stands a chance. If they don't then they could lose to Creighton, but its entirely in their hands at this point.

[wade moore]

Originally Posted by Radii

I agree with everything you're saying about KU/UNC and the midwest in general. My confidence with UNC... confidence may not be exactly the right word... comfort level with UNC is that I believe they are more talented than anyone in the country but perhaps Kentucky. They're inconsistent and don't always play up to their talent level, but I really feel like with this team it hardly matters who they play. If they play up to their potential no one is beating them outside of Kentucky, not even Kansas in St Louis stands a chance. If they don't then they could lose to Creighton, but its entirely in their hands at this point.

What do you think the status of Henson is?

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Radii

I agree with everything you're saying about KU/UNC and the midwest in general. My confidence with UNC... confidence may not be exactly the right word... comfort level with UNC is that I believe they are more talented than anyone in the country but perhaps Kentucky. They're inconsistent and don't always play up to their talent level, but I really feel like with this team it hardly matters who they play. If they play up to their potential no one is beating them outside of Kentucky, not even Kansas in St Louis stands a chance. If they don't then they could lose to Creighton, but its entirely in their hands at this point.

I remember always feeling that about Roy Williams teams at Kansas, too. Always had ridiculous talent but were also quite inconsistent. It seemed like a lot of times, I had that exact same thought: "If we play our best, we are the best team in the country". However, we never always played our best- someone would take us out of our game and we'd lose.

SI

[spleen1015]

Originally Posted by Radii

I agree with everything you're saying about KU/UNC and the midwest in general. My confidence with UNC... confidence may not be exactly the right word... comfort level with UNC is that I believe they are more talented than anyone in the country but perhaps Kentucky. They're inconsistent and don't always play up to their talent level, but I really feel like with this team it hardly matters who they play. If they play up to their potential no one is beating them outside of Kentucky, not even Kansas in St Louis stands a chance. If they don't then they could lose to Creighton, but its entirely in their hands at this point.

I agree with you on UNC. They've looked unstoppable to me on numerous occasions, then they lay an egg like they did in the 2nd half when they lost to Duke.

[spleen1015]

Why is Calipari tweeting that he's not leaving Kentucky?

[Ksyrup]

Originally Posted by spleen1015

Why is Calipari tweeting that he's not leaving Kentucky?

Knicks job and insta-speculation.

[spleen1015]

Originally Posted by Ksyrup

Knicks job and insta-speculation.

I thought so, but damn that was quick on the reply.

[Ksyrup]

I already saw 4-5 tweets about him to the Knicks in just 15-20 minutes.

[Radii]

Originally Posted by wade moore

What do you think the status of Henson is?

I won't be surprised if he doesn't play round 1, I assume he'll play after that and we won't know until we see him in action if he's 100%.

North Carolina Tar Heels won't know status of John Henson until Thursday - ESPN

I haven't heard anything more than that locally.


I said the same thing after the quarterfinals of the ACC tournament... UNC has zero chance to win anything without Henson. He changes games with his presence inside. The Marshall quote in the article sums it up: "That may not show up in the stats, but you can tell teams weren't so worried about attacking us on the inside when the defensive player of the year isn't sitting in there."

My previous statements assume he's healthy of course

[GoldenEagle]

Cal said the exact same things verbatim when he left Memphis for Kentucky. If you don't think he is eyeing that job, you are crazy.

[GoldenEagle]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

[*]It's criminal that Kenpom #9 Memphis and #15 St Louis play in the first round. And as an 8-9.[/list]

And the winner of that gets #3 Michigan State.

But if the Memphis-SLU game is close (and I think it will be), it will probably be a boring, grind it out type game.

[Radii]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

I remember always feeling that about Roy Williams teams at Kansas, too. Always had ridiculous talent but were also quite inconsistent. It seemed like a lot of times, I had that exact same thought: "If we play our best, we are the best team in the country". However, we never always played our best- someone would take us out of our game and we'd lose.

I felt that way in 2009. I did not feel that way in 2005. Call it the Rashad McCants factor. In 2009 though I *expected* the dominant run that we ended up seeing from that Carolina team. This year I feel like they're capable of it but I'm not that confident it'll actually happen. Zeller and Henson will show great things all tournament if healthy, I'm supremely confident in that. I would have taken Zeller 1st overall over Barnes, I think its likely Zeller will score more than Barnes and its guarenteed that Zeller will score more consistently.

Barnes is incredibly streaky, he'll get his points but he may well shoot 4-14 on his way to getting them one or two nights. I love Kendall Marshall but he's shown just a little carelessness at times. That's pretty harsh, I'll probably never give him a totally fair shake since he's following Felton and Lawson, but he is capable of a few lazy passes in key moments.

[Butter]

All you need is one game of Florida State playing like they did when they lost by 20 at Clemson, and their tourney is over. I think their game against St. Bonaventure is going to be closer than people think. Many of their scorers are so streaky, that if you can contain Snaer and have everyone else be off, they won't even beat a 16 seed.

[Ksyrup]

I agree.

...Or lost to Princeton at home. Or lost to Boston College coming off a 7 game winning streak. Or lost by 16 to Miami...

I could see them going out before the first weekend, and I could see them get to the Elite 8. I have no clue what they'll do.

[whomario]

I know no one propably watches, but was this really a charge a couple posessions ago ? The Vermont kid made a great runner and connected with the defender so late, the ball was basically allready at the backboard, when he shot it the defender wasn´t even close to being in position.

This Four McGlynn kid is very fun to watch btw, badass name as well Overall Vermont much more in sync early, getting good looks and taking care of the ball.

[whomario]

Vermont with a clinic here. Clearly not great individual talent, but everybody does the little things, be it screens, hard cuts or making the extra pass. Fun to watch.

[spleen1015]

Originally Posted by whomario

Vermont with a clinic here. Clearly not great individual talent, but everybody does the little things, be it screens, hard cuts or making the extra pass. Fun to watch.

+1

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by whomario

Vermont with a clinic here. Clearly not great individual talent, but everybody does the little things, be it screens, hard cuts or making the extra pass. Fun to watch.

+2. My kind of team, along with those that can play great defense.

[Buccaneer]

Shows you how much of an impact SU's unfortunate (but not surprising) situation had when our local paper, 2500 miles away from Syracuse, put up a 1-inch headline on it in the sports section.

[sterlingice]

"Sorrentine... hit that one from the parking lot!"

They even referenced it in the game tonight for Vermont- definitely a classic March moment

SI

[mauchow]

Belmont has a great shot to beat Georgetown. Theyve got a good squad. Should be a good game.

[sterlingice]

Cal looking really ugly tonight

SI

[Lathum]

PAC 12 Representing!!

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by Lathum

PAC 12 Representing!!

39-16 is like a girl's high school basketball score

But at least Cal now has 25% of their 1st half points and we're barely a minute into the second half

SI

[cuervo72]

Wow, look at that crowd.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by cuervo72

Wow, look at that crowd.

I didn't see. What was it? 1/2 empty?

SI