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2024-25 College Basketball Thread

Discussion in 'Sports and News' started by dixiehack, Sep 21, 2024.

  1. YMCA B-Baller

    YMCA B-Baller Well-Known Member

    Some of this SEC/Big Ten dominance is on the other leagues that could theoretically be competitive too.

    Has anyone noticed the hot garbage that is the ACC? Below Duke and a few others, the mediocrity is endemic. North Carolina, the Virginia schools and Miami cratering all at once hurts the ACC in a big way as the usual mediocre suspects are their typical selves. The new members have added little.
     
  2. dixiehack

    dixiehack Well-Known Member

    This is a very well done piece on how Nate Oats structures his practices to get the hell-bent-for-leather offense Alabama has become famous for.

    https://www.al.com/alabamabasketbal...te-oats-practice-with-alabama-basketball.html
     
  3. BYH 2: Electric Boogaloo

    BYH 2: Electric Boogaloo Well-Known Member

    We're not far from the big three and maybe even the Big East figuring out how to add from the best of the ACC and leaving the rest of it to croak.
     
  4. micropolitan guy

    micropolitan guy Well-Known Member

    He's a very good coach. I've always been more impressed at what he did at Buffalo with few resources than what he's done at Alabama with everything a coach could ever ask for.
     
  5. DanOregon

    DanOregon Well-Known Member

  6. tapintoamerica

    tapintoamerica Well-Known Member

    I wouldn’t say Carolina is cratering, but they’re surely underachieving. If you want cratering, you’re right about Virginia and Miami.
    A year ago today, Miami was 6-5 in the ACC and < a year removed from a Final Four. They have now lost 19 straight conference games.
     
  7. dixiehack

    dixiehack Well-Known Member

    This is not the message I really want to hear as a fan of a team that just reached its first Final Four. But we greatly overrate how much a single Final Four can change a program’s trajectory.

    From 2023, San Diego State is a step ahead of the bubble, FAU is back to anonymity in a high school gym and Miami is gutted. N.C. State made a miracle run last spring and is right back to sucking.

    The CAA got two different schools in five years to the big stage, couldn’t hold on to either and now VCU has to scramble for a bid each year and George Mason fell off the map. Wichita State earned a conference promotion that no longer feels like one. Loyola-Chicago is a fading memory and South Carolina left virtually no impression whatsoever.
     
  8. BTExpress

    BTExpress Well-Known Member

    Let's see how good YOUR memory is at 105!

    [​IMG]
     
    brn623cl, Gutter, da man and 5 others like this.
  9. YMCA B-Baller

    YMCA B-Baller Well-Known Member

    George Mason and VCU are both pretty good this year in a pretty deep A-10, aren't they?

    Wichita State is one I'm familiar with. I was one of many who said buyer beware when they left a cozy spot where they would likely dominate from in the Valley to chasing glory in the AAC. One of the warnings was that the AAC's then-top schools themselves didn't want to be in the AAC. Sometimes I'm right, often I'm wrong, but now WSU is stuck in a mediocre coast-to-coast league and not competitive in it.

    The demise of Gregg Marshall was something they didn't count on. Been a steady decline since. I watched a few minutes of a WSU home game the other night and was blown away by how the fans have bolted. That place was a pit of doom in the 2000s and 2010s.

    Also, Gregg Marshall is the Howard Hughes of basketball coaches. His demise was predictable (he was always a bizarro hot head), but his desire to stay out of any spotlight is somewhat unusual too.
     
  10. dixiehack

    dixiehack Well-Known Member

    The A-10 is pretty firmly a one-bid league this year. VCU has had steady success making the field since 2011 but no Sweet 16 since then. The buzz in the early 2010s was they could become the next Gonzaga, or at the very least find their way into the Big East. (For as rough as Butler looks lately, they did change trajectories with their back-to-back deep runs by getting into a power league.) Poor GMU is a fat 1-2 ever since that one magic spring that put murder in the heart of @BYH 2: Electric Boogaloo.
     
    2muchcoffeeman likes this.
  11. franticscribe

    franticscribe Well-Known Member

    Back-to-back Final Fours launched Butler from the Horizon League to the Big East. Still can't hold on to a decent coach, though.
     
  12. tapintoamerica

    tapintoamerica Well-Known Member

    More like WITSEC or Sammy The Bull.
     
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