2024-25 College Basketball Thread

Now, Michigan takes exception to Sparty's interminable senior day celebration, pageantry and floor kissing at the end of the game, and starts shoving at the end.

Not sure they don't have a point. This is turning preposterous. It's stretched on like 10 minutes.

 

A Furman fan is holding this beauty up in the stands at the SoCon tournament.

 

This is a pre-emptive strike on ESPN and bracketology in general. Joe Lunardi is not close to an expert on his actual bracketology record. He's only the most well known. His five-year bracket average is 118th in the bracket matrix out of approximately 180 entrants. He'd barely make the CBI. Observation/rant over.

 

Mel Kiper career arc. Make something interesting then coast on your name while other people without the near-monopoly platform do it better.

 

Top four seeds bounced from the SoCon tourney.

 

Go Paladins! They were SoCon powers when I was in school, Clyde Mayes, Fessor Leonard. Didn't they bounce UVa from the tournament several years ago, another unexplainable tournament loss by Tony Bennett??

Drake (30-3) wins the MVC auto berth. Selection Committees breathe a sigh of relief, knowing they've been saved from concocting BS excuses to keep them out.

 

Yes, Furman bounced Virginia. The era has ended. It included an NCAA title and the best 10-year stretch by any ACC team not named UNC or Duke. As an alum, I'll take it.
And you're damned right that the committee is giddy that its doesn't have to invent excuses to exclude Drake and take Carolina in the Bulldogs' place. That would have been a double whammy.

 

You still have UC Irvine or UC San Diego and they are in the same conference. So there will be a question about one of them. Irvine is 17-3 in road/neutral games. How nuts is that?

The power conference bubble is such trash. Nebraska was in most first out lists going into today and they didn't even make their conference tourney (they clearly are done, but the fact they were still considered by so many with that on the table). North Carolina and Xavier are a combined 2-19 in Q1 games, almost everyone has Xavier in and Carolina just out. Ohio State lost the bubbliest of games yesterday to fall to 17-13 is just in on most brackets. We could go on.

 

I love Bennett from his time at Wazzu and he did win a title at UVa and did great things and he and his teams always acted first-class (unlike Duke) but it always seemed as if he should have accomplished more. Just some real head-scratching losses in the tournament.

I'd love to see him get back into coaching, maybe at some mid-major without all the pressure to win/NIL/portal nonsense. Davidson is gonna need a coach soon, he'd be perfect there. Three Chopt Tech should have an opening soon as well (hopefully).

 

So was this on the Michigan players being jackasses and moving to halfcourt to block a Michigan State player from kissing the logo?
Or on the Michigan State player being a jackass for getting in the Michigan players' faces?
And I guess a senior kissing the court is a tradition of some sort at Michigan State? I'd never heard of it until 10 minutes ago, so is it well known outside of East Lansing?

 

Sparty players have bent over to kiss the court on Senior Day every year since 1995. However the "ceremony" has ballooned past a 10-second thing to an interminable borefest that stretched on several minutes this year.

 

I haven't been able to pay a ton of attention, but I think the only way VCU is in real danger is if it loses the quarterfinal game on Friday. I'd feel differently if the loss last Friday was to anyone but Dayton. Rams should root for St. Joe's to win its first game, as the Hawks just snuck inside the NET top 75, giving the Rams another Q1 win since they beat St. Joe's in Philly.