2020-21 College Basketball thread

Hey Lunardi why do you hate the A-10?

 

No fucking way is Alabama better than Villanova. Tide peaked two weeks ago.

 

Interesting issue generating plenty of discussion here in Gonzaga-land: Should highly-ranked, shoo-in NCAA tournament teams play in their conference tournaments?

Gonzaga is a prime example of a team that has nothing to gain from winning the WCC tournament, and the fact the event is in Las Vegas introduces more COVID risk than if it was, say, at an empty on-campus arena.

On the other hand, the WCC tournament concludes almost two weeks before NCAA games would start. Skip the conference tournament, and Gonzaga could be looking at a three-week layoff from competitive games.

Here's a pretty good take on the Gonzaga dilemma: West Coast Conference among those debating conference tournament conundrum

 

I think most of the conference tournaments should be cancelled. Now, for the mid-majors where you're trying to eke out a second invite, maybe not.

 

That brings up another big question:

Let's stick with the West Coast Conference, and say that Gonzaga and BYU -- the only two teams worthy of the NCAA tournament -- drop out of the conference tournament. The league's other eight teams play the tournament anyway. IHMO, the NCAA shouldn't give an automatic bid to whichever team wins the B-flight tourney title.

 

I would agree with that

 

Here's the tough one for BYU in this example: If you decline to play because you think you're in, might you get usurped by the conference brother who wins the JV tournament?

 

I am a Mountain West fan and this came up on a fan board, especially with the New Mexico debacle. Should the tourneys be played and if so but top teams aren't there how is the NCAA handling it?

I don't think the NCAA can tell a conference how to decide its champion, although I am not totally sure. I mean, if the NCAA starts telling non-majors now that it can't have a team what's to stop them from doing that in a normal year when an obvious choice doesn't win its tournament giving a team that wouldn't have otherwise gone a berth?

In the MW's case there are four pretty darn good teams this year but for the most part they are very bubbly. How in the world is the NCAA handling them anyway and definitely how is it happening with either a watered down tourney or no tourney at all? I would assume if the MW has a tourney all four would go because they need more resume building games, but it is all an interesting conversation.

 

If you start seeing leagues cancel their conference tournaments -- or have several leagues with significantly "watered down" tournaments -- then maybe this is the year the NCAA gives the auto bid to the regular-season champions.

And yes, the MW is an interesting situation. I think the chaos of COVID rescheduling/cancelations cost the league's top teams some marquee nonconference games ... especially against the Pac-12. I believe Boise State , Colorado State and Utah State lost games against those schools. San Diego State has a couple wins over Pac-12 opponents (UCLA and Arizona State) but hasn't fared as well in Mountain West games.

 

Here's another issue: We're running out of time to reschedule canceled games.
In the ACC, for example, there are 19 games in need of a new date. They include Hokies at Virginia; University-6 at Virginia; Duke at FSU; FSU at Hokies. Clearly, the league office has to prioritize the games that look like they'll be relevant, but I'm guessing they don't want to jump the gun because a team that looks good today -- Virginia, for example -- might not look so hot in a week or two. (Cavaliers' schedule is about to get real.)

 

In C-USA there has been discussion of not holding the tournament or letting the top team(s) sit out. The problem is that Western Kentucky leads the Eastern Division at 13-4, 6-1 while UAB leads the West at 14-2, 7-1. The two teams do not meet in the regular season. I suspect that both will play in the conference tournament as a result. The only conference team with even the slightest chance of an at-large bid is WKU as they played (and lost to) Louisville. They would have to win out from here and lose in the tournament final to have even a bare chance, though, and I don't see that happening. UAB's schedule is too weak, the only way they dance is to win the conference tournament.

Given that Andy Kennedy was hired in mid-March he's done amazingly well. He'd been a broadcaster for a couple of seasons, so he had no recruits in his pocket when hired. Between the guys who graduated or left after the coaching change and those who were told that they were not going to fit, he only had four players. He had to phone and Zoom recruit this team and hustle up transfers without any personal visits. Offense has been spotty, but the defense has been extremely solid. He even found a legit 7' center, a local kid who transferred in from Clemson.