2024-25 College Basketball Thread

Syracuse looks bad this year - around .500 OOC - so that's seemingly a more impressive win by reputation than anything else. The Creighton win is legit, but it is their first of the year, as they lost against the two decent teams they played before then (West Virginia and Notre Dame) by double digits. I think their success is mostly due to the schedule so far, but they probably just need to finish above .500 in BE play to get at-large consideration.

 

The ACC is in a really bad spot.
When the league was at its best, it had multiple teams joining Duke and UNC in the national discussion.
Virginia did it for a decade, delivering the most sustained period of success by anybody not named Duke or Carolina in the history of the conference. But that era is undeniably over.
In an earlier period, Maryland served the function. But they left and their replacement, Louisville, has been a disaster.
Syracuse was supposed to help, but the post-Boeheim era was always going to be iffy.
Neither Georgia Tech nor BC nor Wake Forest has been ranked even once in the AP poll for 15 years. Think about that. Not even a single appearance.
And so on.

 

1, 2, 4, 6, 7 . . . 12, 14, 17 . . . and three more knocking at the door in "others receiving votes."

 

I do think Louisville may have a coach now. But UVA doesn't, and UNC might not, either.

 

I am a little surprised that the Final Four run apparently didn’t fire up N.C. State’s money people enough to try and make a push in the NIL market.

 

Why not Minot?
Freezin's the reason.
The Tragic City.

Named after Henry Minot, a Boston railroad magnate who never visited the city and ironically was killed in a railroad accident.

 

Coldest place I ever spent a winter week in.

 

Most people in the United States have no idea how freaking cold it gets in North Dakota/Northern Minnesota/Eastern Montana. Throw in the wind and it's a winter paradise.

 

Spent a couple of years living in desolate northern Iowa, about 10 miles from the Minnesota border, and winters there were damn near intolerable. A constant blanket of snow and ice, felt like it was dark for about 20 hours a day, and no matter which way you were facing, the wind always seemed to be in your face. Had to be so much worse another state north. Depressing.

 

Soft. The lot of you.

I lived two years in northwestern Wisconsin. Yeah, it got cold, but what doesn't get publicized as much is that it's not constant. You also get some "normal" winter days and it does float above freezing from December-March from time to time.

What sucks about living in a northern climate is spring, not winter. Trees don't green up until mid-May-ish. April is way more depressing than January is. You feel like you're in some sort of post-winter malaise.

 

But ... the summers were amazing. We were renting a place without central air, just a ceiling fan in the main living room, and it was still glorious.

 

Did the ceiling fan keep the mosquitoes away?

PS -- My wife's brother lives in Hibbing, Minn., about an hour from Canada, so we've been alerted on this. We've never visited, but we are considering a cruise that starts on the East Coast and comes through the Great Lakes. It ends in Duluth, which is relatively close to Hibbing.