Running 2022-23 NCAA Basketball Thread

Eat a giant bag of dicks, Boeheim. And try not to kill anyone on your way home.

 

Michigan State was 59% from the field, 73% from 3 pt, and 86% from FT - and lost the game. Good lord.

 

Yeah, it's like Clemson and Chapel Hill finally realized it might want to do something to impress the committee.

Tigers hit everything it threw up in Raleigh. Everything. Kevin Keatts drew a tech before the first TV timeout ... and, funny enough, the only other T I've seen him draw was down at Littlejohn. Hmmm ...

Guess who woke up at the Dean Dome?

Finally, how about Florida State coming back from 25 down to beat Miami in Coral Gables?

 

This is me potentially being a CAA homer #LetsFight but I don't see how they're a better candidate than Charleston if the Cougars go 30-4 and fall in the CAA title game. In its own way, the A-10 is as down this year as the CAA...worst year for the league at KenPom since 2007. It's so bad that fucking Fordham and Duquesne have legit paths to the title. FUCKING FORDHAM AND DUQUESNE! VCU at 26-8 will almost surely have lower NET and KenPom numbers than Charleston if Charleston can go 30-4 and the league is doing it no favors. The same of course can be said for Charleston, but their resume pops more. What else can a team do to get an NCAA bid if it goes 30-4?

 

If CofC finishes 30-4 and gets snubbed, there's a problem. Of course, the committee moves the goalposts every season, and the answer is never consistent when it comes to defending its work during the tournament selection show. Yes, the committee's members change annually, but shouldn't that make the parameters being a constant even more important?

 

More WCC after dark … and after Gonzaga dominated the first 30 minutes, here come the Gaels making a run.

 

GU steady down the stretch, holds off Saint Mary’s in Spokane and the two teams split the WCC regular season title.

Between the Gaels’ backcourt and Gonzaga’s front line of Drew Timme and Anton Watson, both of these teams could be a handful in the NCAAs.

 

The Aztecs deliver the capper on a pretty wild day of college hoops:

 

I have long advocated that NCAA basketball should restore some meaning to winning a conference championship. Currently if a team wins a conference championship bit loses their conference tournament all they get is an NIT invitation. I don't think that many teams consider that an award.

So, expand the field to 96 and give every conference two slots. One for their regular season champion and a second for the winner of their tournament. If the regular season champion wins the tournament the loser of the tournament championship game goes. That way the conference tournament always has meaning because it will determine one participant in the NCAA tournament. It would also ada bout 10 more at-large teams

I also believe that a team must have a winning record in their conference regular season to be invited. If a team finishes with a .500 record in their conference they have to win the first round of their tournament. This would mean that a lot of first round tournament games in Power Six conferences could turn into play-in games.

 

Purdue finding out guard/wing play means a lot more than having an unstoppable big man in 2023.

 

You're right on Charleston. I think they're a lot closer to the bubble than VCU is, honestly. New Mexico is in serious trouble after that loss last night.

 

Or perhaps the conference could restore some meaning to winning a conference by simply awarding the automatic berth to the regular-season champion. It's their decision. Then you hold the conference tournament to see if anyone else can win enough to earn a berth.

It generally doesn't mean anything in the P5 tournaments; 2021 Oregon State is the rare exception. But in the one-bid conferences, having your best team knocked out in the conference tournament makes no sense since the NCAA money is in the units earned. Your already-remote chance of earning more than one unit decreases if your best team isn't in the tournament. There are exceptions (SPC in 2022) but they are very, very rare.