Official Running NCAA/March Madness thread

NC State went 9-9 in the ACC. The wins:

at Miami, Pitt, at Notre Dame, Clemson, at Pitt, Syracuse, BC, Wake, at BC, Clemson.

They didn't beat anyone worth a shit in the ACC. Save for Syracuse at home. Yipee. They played one game on the road out of conference, and that's only because the ACC-Big Ten Challenge mandated it. UNCG asked to play NC State, and Keatts said "no thanks, we lost to y'all last year so fuck you." Cry me a fucking river for NC State.

 

Duke
UNC
Kentucky
Michigan State

2 of these 4 won't be in the Final 4.

Greenberg going all in on my Red Raiders.

 

If any other coach in America was coaching Houston, they could make a deep run.
Very anxious to see Murray State v. Marquette.

 

That's the quadrant of death right there ... Marquette-Murray State and Florida State-Vermont. If I lived in Connecticut, I'd buy a ticket to that session.

 

Not quite sure I agree with the last sentence, but I do agree with the general sentiment.

My biggest issue with the committee is tell us what you are seeking before you meet, gather in a conference room and determine who the 68 will be. Don't put it together, move the goalposts for your group's convenience and walk out as if you're infallible.

Point is, one year they urge teams with weak SOS to play someone (NCSU's SOS was awful). The next season, someone adjusts their schedule to stop piling up cupcakes, lose too many games then argue the won-loss record was unacceptable. The next season, it's something else. It's like getting a bad grade on a paper because your instructor made zero effort to tell you what he/she was looking for until he/she bled all over your paper while grading it. If you have no idea what their points of emphasis are, how can anyone make the right kind of adjustments to avoid being on the wrong side of things?

There are humans on the committee, so there will likely be a human factor involved. But you would think a society that can create the sort of technology that puts apps on mobile phones could come with an algorithm that can make their choices a little more consistent from season to season.

OK ... back to Cosmo's points ... because, whether he believes this or not, I mostly agree with him.

Cannot lose to Wake Forest. Cannot lose at home to Georgia Tech on the final week of the regular season. Cannot do those things and not schedule a little better non-conference prior to the ACC part of the schedule. It was no secret that, for years, Clemson would schedule no one, start the ACC portion of the slate 14-0, 13-1 or something like that, then win one out of four ACC games. They would still finish with a winning record overall, but SOS was junk and - except for maybe one scalp they might get in Littlejohn - not come away with much else.

I have a problem because NCSU finished 9-9 in a conference that yielded three No. 1 regional seeds and a dangerous No. 4 in Florida State. There were seasons where 6-10 was good enough because the league was considered that good. If it wasn't that good this season, then why are the trolls here trying to trash the ACC?

(Funny ... many are the same sorts who rave about SEC football. Please tell me the difference.)

What changed? If Kevin Keatts adjusts his schedule to improve the SOS and fares better, will that ensure that the committee critiques in the same way next season?

 

Why do I keep thinking LSU has a colossal bed-shitting against Yale?

 

If the NCAA came out and said that raw SOS left them out, it’s a steaming pile of trash.

The N.C. State schedule was functionally middling and struck by some bad luck. If the worry is the lack of good wins or presence of some bad losses, that’s fine.

But if it’s that stupid SOS shit, fuck that.

 

If Keatts played and beat UNCG instead of USC Upstate, they're in. Unfortunately, I'm well aware with that scheduling philosophy, because Buzz Williams seems to be about it at Virginia Tech.

 

The ACC was super weird this year, in that how your schedule fell made a huge difference in how you finished. Virginia Tech got the same luck as State. The Hokies just happened to beat Duke, and that made the schedule look better. In reality, VT won 12 games in the ACC, nine against the dregs (Miami twice, Wake, BC, Pitt, Notre Dame twice, Georgia Tech twice). That's why I couldn't bitch about Buzz not winning ACC COY. You should win 12 games against that schedule.

 

Without further adue.

Upset picks
14 Yale over 3 LSU
12 Oregon over 5 Wisconsin

Sleeper team.
Marquette
Kansas State (IF Wade is good to go. If he's not, they could lose Game 1 to UC-I.)

Final 4

Duke

Michigan (went back and forth and back and forth between Michigan and Texas Tech)

Purdue

North Carolina

Michigan beats Duke
UNC beats Purdue

UNC beats Michigan

 

While we’re at it, let’s go through ACC schedules. UVA and UNC had the same record in conference play. Here are the ACC road games for each team, with the ACC tournament seed of each opponent:

Hoos:
UNC (2)
Duke (3, with Zion)
VT (5)
Syracuse (6)
Louisville (7)
NC State (8)
Clemson (9)
BC (11)
Notre Dame (15)

Heels:
Duke (3, without Zion for all but 30 seconds)
Louisville (7)
NC State (8)
Clemson (9)
Georgia Tech (10)
BC (11)
Miami (12)
Wake (13)
Pitt (14)

UVA went unbeaten in nonconference against a middling schedule; UNC lost three times, two very good losses to 2 seeds and one bad one to Texas. Both lost in the ACC semis. And UVA won, in the Dean Dome, the only time the teams met.

So that’s the case for UVA having a season more worthy of a top seed than UNC. The case for UNC, near as I can tell, is that UVA lost to a 16 last season and that Zion’s shoe didn’t give out until late in the year.

 

You poor thing. And explain to me how the Big 10 (a conference anyone here will tell you I detest) got nine of its 14 teams in yet wasn’t worthy of a single 1 seed while the ACC, which got in one fewer team, had three?