NCAA tournament 2011 — running thread

The Southwest region has Kansas, a 10, an 11 and a 12.

No team in the tournament has more pressure on them than the Jayhawks now.

 

Jay Bilas is the Tom Verducci of college hoops: Conflicts out the ass and as likely to take accountability for anything he writes or says as I am to grow a second dick. I hope VCU wins the whole fucking thing.

 

Pitino never explained himself beyond that, and Smith ate his lunch when he was discussing hand pump time vs. real time (is it 8 seconds to get the ball across halfcourt in college too, or 10?).

Let's face it, Pitino wasn't going to say anything bad about any call or any official working the tournament, for fear he won't get a close call next season. It's like he went in there thining "I'm Rick Pitino. Dick Vitale and all the TV guys have made a career out of kissing my ass, so I'm the baddest boy in the building, even badder than the NBA guys they imported from cable." Smith made his case, using ancedotal evidence as someone who has played within the last decade, and knocked him out of the ring.

(of course, Vitale's ass-kissing is nothing like the one he may have gotten in Louisville...)

 

The Big East didn't have a great four days, but it's too easy to dismiss the conference as a failure for the entire season just because of their performance in a one-and-done situation. A tournament that has had the overall No. 1 seed win the national championship once in the last 10 years (Florida 2007), can't be used as a barometer for the strength of a conference during the regular season.

Just like a worn-out Purdue team struggled Sunday after being beat up in the regular season, the same could be said about teams from the Big East. Take Pitt's schedule before they faced UNC Asheville on Thursday. The Panthers faced five NCAA tournament teams in their previous six games, including four teams (UCONN, Louisville, West Virginia and St. Johns) that had a seed of six or better. Compare that with BYU who faced TCU and Wyoming during that stretch or Arizona who played three straight games against the Oregon schools in March.

Look at the wins the Big East teams had out of their conference during the regular season. UCONN beat Kentucky, Michigan St and Texas, Notre Dame defeated Wisconsin, Gonzaga and Georgia, St. Johns won over Duke, West Virginia prevailed over Purdue, Louisville beat Butler, Villanova won against UCLA and Pitt also beat Texas. Cincinnati played a soft non-conference schedule, but beat Xavier by 20. The Big East had 19 out of conference wins against top-level NCAA teams during the season. Marquette, the only team without a marquee non-conference win, lost by five or less to Duke, Gonzaga, Wisconsin and Vanderbilt. Marquette also beat Syracuse, UCONN and Notre Dame (by 23) during their conference schedule.

The argument that ESPN unduly hyped the Big East, too, is a bad one. The Big East is on ESPN just as much as the ACC, Big Ten, SEC or Big 12. The ACC Championship was on ESPN, as was the Big 12 final and the SEC (on ABC). To say that ESPN wants Syracuse or UCONN to do better than teams like Kansas, Kentucky, Ohio State or North Carolina is just wrong.

 

Kenny and Charles are giving their analysis like a couple of guys who don't need this job, and we are all the better for it.

 

If, and it is a big if, the NBA ever goes to a mandatory two years or three years past your high school graduating class to enter the NBA, then all this parody in college basketball will be over.

Chuck hit it right on the head noting that the Big East has only one great player in the entire conference. That is the same amount, or only one more great player than the CAA, MEAC, Horizon, A-10, Patriot and all the rest.

And watching the Purdue/VCU game, VCU probably had the three best players on the floor.

 

What the NBA needs to do is adopt baseball's rule: Once you're in a four-year school, you're there for the next three years. It would strengthen not only college basketball, but the NBA. They also ought to set up some sort of advisory board, like the NFL has, to give a player an opinion different than that of an agent as to where he might go (an agent may say first round, the committee may say D-League).

Smith made a good point too: He knew when he was up against someone tough, he be guarding him not just that year, but for the next 10 years, in college and the NBA. We're not seeing that any more with all the one-and-dones.

 

Everyone's entitled to their opinion, and I'll disagree with yours.

 

Greg Anthony was invisible the segments I saw.

 

Pick either the team with the six game losing streak to end the season... or the five game losing streak to end the season...

 

And ignore the whole body of work? Then why bother playing the games early in the season if we're going to dismiss them out of hand?

 

It is my belief, and it's just a belief, that the Big East situation this year is just an exaggeration of what most often happens to the conference with the most at-large bids, that is, it has a lot of first and second round losers. Part of this is math, as more bids equals more chances to lose. But I think more of it comes from attrition. Play in a conference where the eighth place, or 11th place team is NCAA capable, there are no nights off from December on. This is wearing.
As for the Big East this year, it had a lot of good teams, but no one would've called any of them great, or even excellent. So some of them ran afoul of the law of averages. It doesn't mean the conference was overrated, just that it had a high class average because of its many B students, not because it had a couple of valedictorians at the top.