2015 NCAA Tournament thread

Well, if Zag says so it's so.

All hail Zag.

 

I'll depend on my scores app to alert me in the morning of who won the game. These 9:17 p.m . tips or whatever are fucking garbage.

 

6:17 works out great, it's just in time for me to get home from work.

What's this 9:17 stuff?

 

If I was advising guys - I'd tell all of the Kentucky guys to stay another year and really work on their games.

Karl Anthony Towns is very one dimensional
Willie Cauley-Stein is one of the worst fundamental players I've ever seen
The Booker kid needs to add a handle and the ability to beat guys off the dribble
The two Harrison's are low basketball IQ guys who might as well enjoy college as I am not sure what they project at the next level

 

And part of being a hardened team is cohesiveness that comes with staying as a unit longer.

As I posted when the tourney started, Wisconsin's top 6 scorers have 18 years of college experience, not to mention the next few guys are upperclassmen.

When you're great, and seasoned, it makes a difference.

Give credit to Kentucky for beating Notre Dame though the Irish should've won (in spite of Towns' great game).

 

Oh shit. Dodd rages.

Zach Heilprin‏@ZachHeilprin
ESPN's reports Aaron Rodgers will be in attendance tonight. So will JJ Watt, Joe Thomas, Devin Harris & Michael Finley. #BadgersGoodKarma

 

With those five there, Dodd can get enough postgame quotes without ever having to talk to someone who participated in the game.

 

I'd tell them they'll improve more playing against better competition in the NBA, where they can actually get paid for their services.

Is this even an argument anymore? If a guy is projected to go in the first round, they'd be foolish to stay in school. If they're borderline, end of round 1/early round 2 talent, then, yeah, maybe you stay in school to try to improve your draft stock. Even then, there's probably more risk than reward.

 

Actually Bigpern23, you are right. If they are all going to be first rounders they would be fools not to go.

Get paid, play hoops 24/7 and do so without having to go to school and have time restrictions and all the other stuff.

I guess the way I should have put it is this - I look at these guys and see WHY NBA teams will take them but they all have a few years of development if they want to make sure they get that SECOND (and much larger) contract.

But you are right BigPern23, they should all go if they are gonna be first rounders.

 

Song - to your point, Wisconsin does have that going for them -- they are a more cohesive, more polished unit and have played a lot more games together - but I don't think that necessarily means they are tougher. I just think they are more veteran, more experienced and were able to execute better down the stretch.

Kentucky proved to me they were tougher than people gave them credit for when they came from behind and beat Notre Dame. If you would have told me before the game what the score was going to be with 2 or 3 minutes left, I'd have said no way does Kentucky win it. But they found a way and that told me they are tough enough

 

Eh. Sparty in the national semis, I'll grant you. But other than that: 16 seed, then a 27-win 8 seed, then a decently dangerous Utah team, then Gonzaga in the year the Zags Finally Figured It Out. Duke made them all look like chumps, but that might be because Duke's really good. 2010 Duke (Ark-Pine Bluff, Cal, Purdue ravaged by injuries, Baylor, Not Kentucky [WVU] and Butler) had an easier path.

2006 Florida is still my gold standard for this. South Alabama and UW-Milwaukee in Jacksonville. Then 7-seed Georgetown and that deeply, deeply flawed Nova team in the Elite 8. (You know. The one that played 9 guards in the starting lineup and somehow had to defend Horford and Noah with that. Yeah, no.) Gators get to the Final Four after Duke/UCONN self-terminated and get to play a cute little preseason NIT opening round duo of George Mason and laughable UCLA for the title. "Chaos" was the national champion that season.

 

I had a bet with a friend that Kentucky would go undefeated in SEC play. I also had them going out in the national semis (to Arizona, alas for my bracket).

Cal is a great coach; you're stuck in your ways if you don't think recruiting and getting these guys to form a unit is easy stuff. That said, he just isn't a very good X-and-O coach. I'm a Georgia fan and watched Mark Fox- not necessarily the biggest genius for this sort of thing- just clown Calipari with the in-game stuff twice this season. (Apparently Cal was under the assumption that Georgia's mobile bigs would stop being mobile because, um) Fox and the Dawgs didn't have the talent to seal the second game, but someone was going to. Wisconsin did.