Running 2022-23 NCAA Basketball Thread

Thoughts and prayers for the Central Texas Institute of Sexual Assault. Good win for Virginia.

 

Hokies 5-0 after holding off a furious Penn State charge in Charleston. Good stretch coming up, so we'll get a little better idea how for real Tech is. They'll get Charleston on Sunday in the championship game, so that'll be a nice road test. After Chuck South at home, they get Minnesota, North Carolina and Dayton at home and Oklahoma State on a neutral floor. The ACC schedule actually sets up nicely for a quick January start -- at BC and Wake, followed by Clemson and NC State at home. Nice to have something to cheer for after this disaster of a football season.

 

There’s something to be said for any kind of win. Whether they hung on or dominated, they haven’t yet given the committee the data point to hold against them. And it looks like teams won’t be able to rely exclusively on a winning ACC record come March.

 

Yowsa!

 

Good thing there aren’t too many guns in this country.

 

Obviously, as a whole, the ACC has not gotten off to a strong start in non-conference action. But we've yet to see if the top schools are still among the country's elite.

Last season, it didn't look good either, while the Big Ten looked like the proverbial gauntlet during the regular season. Yet, come NCAA Tournament time, the Big Ten failed faster than Iowa's football offense, while the ACC fared pretty well.

I don't want to repeat Jim Boeheim's shot at the Big Ten a few weeks back, but it might be a little early to bury everyone.

 

I want to add something, but it probably needs to stay on the political thread.

 

For a league that's perennially relegated to the play-in games, the SWAC is racking up a bit of a body count in non-conference games so far. Southern beat Cal on Friday to add to these already:
• Alcorn State beat Wichita State and Stephen F. Austin
• Texas Southern beat Arizona State
• Prairie View beat Washington State
• Grambling beat Colorado
Might not wind up being a murderer's row when everything shakes out, but any road win over a power conference team — or really any non-conference road win, considering the number of body bag games they play — is pretty noteworthy for a league like that.

 

Pretty impressive, really. Of all the historically lowest rated leagues (MEAC, SWAC, Southland, NEC), has any claimed that many wins in a season against a Power-5/6 kind of league?
Wondering if it can free the champion from the First Four and perhaps knock it off the 16 line.

 

You would hope so, although it might end up depending on who the champion is. When Texas Southern won at Michigan State and Kansas State in 2014 it wound up as a No. 15 seed in the NCAA Tournament. But the SWAC is the kind of league where a 12-20 team can get on a run, win the league tournament, and muck things up.

Some good analysis of it here. I didn't realize until reading it that a couple of these games have been home games for the SWAC teams as part of an agreement with the Pac-12. Deion Sanders also gets some credit.

https://www.ncaa.com/news/basketbal...ne-early-winners-mens-college-basketball-2022

 

Jimmy Dykes just referred to Drew Timme's "honey hole" ...
Should I be concerned?

 

They listed out the next several years worth of locations for Kentucky-Gonzaga, including a game in Nashville in a few years.

Growing up, UK hosted a game in Louisville (besides the rivalry game vs U of L) seemingly every year. But they’ve never played one of those in the Yum Center. The last one I found was 2012 game against Little Rock at Freedom Hall. Do the Cards have something in their contract with the Yum Center that prevents renting it out to the Cats?