Running NCAA men's tournament thread 2012

I don't think that they are as likely to go as far as the traditional powers in a given years. I think they are likelier to do so than they used to be. That's an important distinction, and it is why you will still have years like this year, when it is mostly chalk. Which, don't get me wrong, I'm glad about.

 

Likelier is the exactly correct word. It used to be laughable to contemplate a mid-major making the Final Four. Now, it's not. Once upon a time, the Mountain West having twice as many teams in the field as the Pac-12 would've been an unthinkable outrage. Now, people figure they deserved it.

 

But both those cases are lightning in a bottle. Over the long haul, the Pac 12 should have better success than the Mountain West, because you assume UCLA and Arizona can't stay where they are forever, and USC and Stanford to a lesser degree as well. And while it might be less shocking for a mid-major to reach the Final Four, it still requires a lot of circumstances to fall in place, some in their control, some not.

It should be noted that while we've seen a few mid-major teams make great runs in the tournament, it's usually not the mid-majors that people were high on in the regular season. Murray State finished in the top 10 this year and didn't make it out of the first weekend. Wichita State was in the top 15 by the end and didn't even get out of the first round. Drake was a 5 seed and ranked 14th by the AP in 2008, and they lost in the first round. Even Gonzaga, the poster child for mid-major stronghouses, has one Elite Eight and zero Final Four visits to its name. Not sure what this means, but I found it interesting at least.

 

And that one Elite Eight happened in the first year of its current run of relevance (1999).

 

I believe the first year they got a top 8 seed (2002 or 2003), they promptly celebrated their debut among the basketball elite by losing to Wyoming in the first round.

 

By Big Six standards, this year's Gonzaga/BYU are brutally-undersized, and play like it, against bigger boys.

 

For all the talk in recent years about mid-majors doing well because they have veteran players, many of the BCS conference teams left -- Kentucky being a major exception -- have upperclassmen stars.

Michigan State - Green is a senior
UNC - Zeller is a senior, Henson a junior
Kansas - Taylor a senior, Robinson a junior
Marquette - Crowder and Johnson-Odom seniors
Baylor - Acy a senior, Jackson a junior
Syracuse - Jardine a senior

 

Of that group, how many will be first round NBA picks?

 

Crowder for sure, Green almost for sure, Jardine quite possibly. There are, after all, 30 first round picks.

 

You're missing a few big ones: Syracuse's Kris Joseph is a senior; North Carolina's Kendall Marshall is a junior; Kansas' Elijah Johnson and Jeff Withey are juniors; Duke's Miles Plumlee is a senior, Seth Curry is a redshirt junior and Mason Plumlee and Ryan Kelly are juniors; and Missouri's Marcus Denmon, Ricardo Ratliffe and Kim English are all seniors.

The idea that senior leadership is the heart of the modern upset fails because Missouri was probably the most experienced team in the tournament. Five of their seven rotation players were seniors, one was a junior and the last was a sophomore. Duke was more experienced than Lehigh. Butler last year was very experienced. The year before, for the first title-game run, the Bulldogs had one key senior (Willie Veasley, a defensive specialist) and one key junior (Matt Howard) to go along with a gaggle of sophomores.

 

True, but are these players the superstar lottery types that used to littler the teams of the Final Four and Elite Eight? Granted, more verteran talented players on the major teams will squeeze out the VCUs and Butler, which is happening now, but this is still a far cry from the 1980s or 1990s.

 

Yeah, I was just going off the top of my head and picking from among the Sweet 16 teams, so I didn't include the Mizzou or Duke guys.