Running 2022-23 NCAA Basketball Thread

They effectively screwed over Houston by not dropping them a seed line in light of their best player's injury of uncertain severity. If you put them at No. 2, you're not running the risk of pairing them with Auburn in Birmingham.
If Houston isn't able to commit to Sasser's availability, you can reasonably conclude that the Houston team with a No. 1 seed-worthy resume wouldn't be the Houston team we'd get in the tournament. So adjust the bracket accordingly. It's not a punishment; it's a reasonable prediction.

 

Did anybody on the committee watch the two Duke-Virginia games this year? Duke got screwed out of the regular-season meeting and was the superior team on Saturday night. Never trailed. Only tied for 26 seconds. Virginia never had a chance to tie in the final 30 minutes. Defensive suffocation. Lively is the difference-maker. Etc. But Duke is a five and Virginia a four.
Not that it will matter. Cavaliers will lose to Furman. Duke will get past Oral Roberts and then have an especially easy second-round affair with Louisiana Lafayette or the ghost of a once-promising Tennessee team.

 

That's why I pointed out the seeding for 4-7 seeds seems so wonky. How are Miami and Duke lower seeds than Virginia? How is Kentucky a 6 and A&M a 7? How is Michigan State a 7?

 

A&M gets dinged for a couple of bad losses early on. Can't imagine there have been too many teams go 15-3 and get placed on the 7 line. Notre Dame comes to mind a year ago. Went 15-5 in the ACC and had to jailbreak out of Dayton.

A&M and Clemson's stories continue to indicate what I have said for a year now: Bad losses are far more detrimental than good wins are beneficial. Good wins get one brief love tap. Bad losses result in a flogging.

 

I was expecting Duke to get a 2 or 3…..but not a 5. That said, I wouldn’t be shocked if Oral Roberts bears them.

 

If Houston had been dropped to a 2 seed as would have been reasonable, which team would have been promoted to a one? The four 2 seeds all have reasonable cases. Texas beat Kansas the last two times they met, Marquette was Big East regular season and tourney champion, UCLA and Arizona were thought of as potential ones pretty much all the last month.

 

By my count there are only 12 teams from the Mountain and Pacific time zones in the tourney, and as you noted two of 'em are in a Dayton playin game. Before the NCAA switched to its current format, which I dislike, and did seedings but also tried to keep geography in mind for all the teams not just the top seeds, the West was always kind of the sock drawer regional, and some of its 16 teams had to travel a very long way to get to their first game. Went with BC to Salt Lake one year, and in the second round they played St. Joseph's. Those were long-ass flights.

 

UCLA or Arizona should have been a one over Purdue.

 

I don't think many fans would have been surprised or upset if that had happened, but win the Big Ten regular season and tournament and you will be a one seed come what may.

 

No CBI for Detroit Mercy. Maravich's record is safe:

https://www.detroitnews.com/story/s...s-on-detroit-mercy-antoine-davis/69999441007/

 

Could there possibly be a more appropriate sponsor for the CBI than Discount Tire?

 

The Iowa-Auburn matchup is a plague ship that should have been abandoned. Couldn’t put it opposite of Bama or Purdue because of conference ties. If it went opposite of Kansas, then Iowa gets the reverse of the current scenario playing in Des Moines and Bill Self rises from his sick bed with homicidal intent. They needed to break those teams up.