Selection Sunday-NCAA tournament thread

I don't think Southern can beat Gonzaga, but the point spread (22 the last time I checked) might tempt a few bettors.

If Southern can keep the game in the 50s or even 60s, it could give the Bulldogs a scare. But ultimately GU's depth (Bell and Stockton can help at guard) and superior frontline should win out.

 

there's been a lot of talk about how this could be they a 16 wins based on some truly atrocious conference losses by some upper-tier teams, but aside from southern, all these 16s didn't finish first or second in their leagues. maybe if there were decent 16 seeds, i could see it.

 

Southern is not beating Gonzaga anymore than Gonzaga is going to the Final Four. Don't like the odds of either.

 

The odds of a 16 beating a 1 would get dramatically better if small conferences started sending their regular season champ. It would strengthen the bottom of the field. As it is, there can be a big difference between 15s and 16s. Some years all the 16s are terrible teams that happened to win a few games over one week against other terrible teams, like Liberty this year.

If you are a 2-seed you can actually run into a decent 15. Last year, Detroit was a 15 with a McDonald's All-American point guard playing for his dad and a talented transfer big man Indiana had kicked of the team. He wasn't eligible until mid-season so they lost some games early on or would have been seeded higher. That's a team you can imagine pulling an upset.

 

Funny you mentioned Detroit. Was there a bigger mid-major disappointment, aside from possibly Ohio, in the country than Detroit Mercy?

Ohio brought everyone back from last season's team that was amazing in March, but Ivo Baltic is a shell of his former self and Walter Offut forgot how to shoot. They crapped the bed in the MAC title game, but I still expected Detroit to be a lot better than they were.

It will be interesting to see what the Titans do against Arizona State in the first round.

 

North Texas was probably a bigger disappointment as a mid-major. They have a potential lottery pick in Tony Mitchell and brought back the two starting guards that were ineligible because of grades the year before, actually got some Top 25 preseason votes ... and utterly shit the bed. They hired the wrong coach after Johnny Jones left.

 

As I know all too well from last year, Norfolk built its team on the strength of a bunch of New York City players who were just not quite good enough to go Big East or A-10. But that still means they're pretty good, and goddamn tough too. Kyle O'Quinn is an NBA rookie now. That's a damn talented team, and as much as it pissed off us Mizzou fans, it really is not all that shocking that Norfolk win a game like that.

 

Robert Morris is a +1 from going up 10-0 on Kentucky.

 

A few points for a few different posts:

1. Kansas won't see a team in this tournament as bad as TCU. That doesn't mean I think KU will lose in the first round, or the second or third rounds, but it means crazier things have happened to teams of that caliber this season already.

2. I really like the points made about conferences sending their season champ instead of their tourney champ. But I LOVE that any team, no matter what (outside the Ivy League, so far as I'm aware) is just 10 or 11 or whatever wins away from the national championship, no matter what they did the rest of the season. I think I'd be disappointed to see that change, though the prospect of a all-together better NCAA tourney is enticing.

 

Kentucky 27, Robert Morris 26.

 

Just jumped on, so if this has been brought up, feel free to ignore.
As far as making the regular season count more in the smaller leagues, would anyone oppose the league champ skipping the conference tourney, then hosting the conference champ a few days after the tournament for the bid?

 

That could backfire. The team coming out of the conference tourney would be on a streak and the conference regular-season champ would have been sitting around for at least a week. Too many coaches believe you can be too rested to allow a format like that.

Giving the top two seeds two byes might work out better (at least in conferences large enough to do that).