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March Madness Thread

Grand Canyon College was an NAIA basketball power back in the day. I remember when they beat Kearney State College in the National Championship game in the late 70s. That was a brutal but incredibly fun tournament. You had to win four games in four days to make the title game, then the finalists got one day off before playing for all the marbles.

Not sure when GCU moved up to Division I, but I think it was about 10 years ago.
The Antelopes Vs the Antelopes….the only 2 schools with that team name
 
A&M stressed a really good Houston team to the limit.

Even Houston struggled to keep them from driving and getting to the rim. And Houston arguably has the best defensive guards in the country.

Interview with Shead after the game, and he fouled out, and he was still exhausted.

People will try to talk about Buzz Williams being a great coach, but exactly the opposite. How that Texas A&M team lost 15 games is a travesty.
 
Big Ten team Northwestern getting destroyed by UCONN. How many team will Big Ten have in the sweet 16? Saw someone claiming the Big East is a mid-major conference. They have all 3 qualifiers make the sweet 16. UConn is defending champion. The emotions of March madness lead to fans making really dumb comments.
For the most part, the teams that looked head and shoulders above the rest of their conference throughout the season proved it this weekend. Houston and Iowa St., Duke and Carolina, Purdue and Illinois, Marquette, Creighton, and UCONN were all unquestionably at the top of their respective conferences all year. Arizona the only elite team in the PAC 12.

SEC underachieved, ACC overachieved, everyone else about where they should be. As for the Big East, you could make a case for 1 or 2 more getting in, but none of the additions would have made it past this weekend either most likely.
 
SEC has 2 sweet 16 teams
Big 12 has 2 sweet 16 teams
B1G has 2 sweet 16 teams

then there's this



Big East is the premiere hoops league and basically always has been. very fun conference full of characters at the helm of just about every program.

saying we'd have done worse in the Big East isn't a sleight, it's obvious. and it's true for every single B1G program.

You post records of past two ncaa, but not this years? Hmm I wonder why?

B1G 6-4 60% record
Big 12 7-6 54%
SEC 5-6 45%

That juggernaut big east only got three teams dancing. Nebraska easily finishes fourth in that top-heavy conference
 
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Honestly, yes. If you can't stop a team driving to the hoop, at least put them on the line.
The scouting report on Texas A&M is let them shoot the 3's and box out on their misses... Then they start the game 5 for 5 from behind the arc you have to change the game plan. Nebraska had to start coming out for the 3 and it weakened the interior defense, and Texas A&M is a more athletic team. There are very few teams that could of beat A&M on Friday. Sunday they played worse and they took Houston to overtime. There is a reason Mast looked so bad, his help was stretched out along the 3 point line
 
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The scouting report on Texas A&M is let them shoot the 3's and box out on their misses... Then they start the game 5 for 5 from behind the arc you have to change the game plan. Nebraska had to start coming out for the 3 and it weakened the interior defense, and Texas A&M is a more athletic team. There are very few teams that could have beat A&M on Friday. Sunday they played worse and they took Houston to overtime. There is a reason Mast looked so bad, his help was stretched out alone the 3 point line
W.Taylor 3 of 13 from 3 against Houston
W.Taylor 7 of 10 from 3 against Nebraska

If Taylor shoots anywhere near like he did against Nebraska aTm rolls Houston.
 
The really frustrating part of college basketball is the lack of consistency from officials. I’m not talking missed/bad calls. While that’s always an issue, I generally don’t have an expectation that there won’t be human error when you’re trying to evaluate very high level athletes playing a physical game in real time. But it’s blatantly obvious there is no set standard for the level of physicality allowed from crew to crew, game to game, or team to team. They allow so much contact some games and then the next tournament game starts and they’re calling touch fouls everywhere. It really does influence outcomes as multiple teams have come out and had key players in foul trouble in the first 3 minutes today. And beyond that, the style of play they allow can tip the scales from favoring finesse vs physical teams. I get some of this comes from what each conference wants/allows and then those crews likely call games how they have all year…but man it gets old and I wish they could standardize and fix it. /rant.

It's like you copied/pasted my posts about officiating for the past 3 years... (mostly from watching B1G refs, but it applies to NCAA games as well - unfortunately).
 
I am sure there will be more but for the Sweet 16 games I really only see Illinois being the "lower seed" to win their game.

14 of top 17 kenpom teams in sweet 16
Creighton #3 seed too..I won’t discard #4 seed Bama beating NC..
 
Nebraska was a good basketball team this year but lacked athleticism. Would be nice to get someone from the portal to help in this area. Ulis can defend well enough, nice 15 footer and can get to the rim - could be an upgrade for us and move B Will to SF.
 
Nebraska was a good basketball team this year but lacked athleticism. Would be nice to get someone from the portal to help in this area. Ulis can defend well enough, nice 15 footer and can get to the rim - could be an upgrade for us and move B Will to SF.
Ulis isn’t that good of point guard, struggles shooting from the perimeter.

Have Clarkeye buddies telling me ” you can have him” and they were glad to see him leave..
 
Jays struggled hard with Oregon, Tennessee is a more athletic version of the Ducks. It will be interesting to see how they match up.
TN matches up well but Creighton is a better basketball team. SEC a little overrated and rarely played defense all year.
 
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TN matches up well but Creighton is a better basketball team. SEC a little overrated and rarely played defense all year.
Yeah, maybe the SEC is a little overrated, it is hard to tell though, sometimes it is just the matchups you get.
 
Nebraska was a good basketball team this year but lacked athleticism. Would be nice to get someone from the portal to help in this area. Ulis can defend well enough, nice 15 footer and can get to the rim - could be an upgrade for us and move B Will to SF.

Ulis would be fine as a backup point guard. I am hoping we can get JP Pegues (transfer from Furman) to be the starting point here next year.
 
Me posting for the 5th straight year that our hoops coach is a meek loser is all of a sudden a “downward spiral”?

Okay.

Let me know when your brain takes the wheel back from your feelings. There are enough uninteresting bleeding hearts around here. We don’t need one more.
He did have a good season this year, although he needs many more to make up for all of the previous bad seasons.
 
Seeing the Big Ten team’s performance in the tournament takes a little luster off the Huskers performance this year. Yes it was a great accomplishment though it explains why we never got into the top 25. Northwestern getting stomped, Wisconsin out, Michigan State out, why do they all struggle in the tournament
The B1G is a deep and competitive conference. The teams beat up each other week in and week out.
 
The B1G is a deep and competitive conference. The teams beat up each other week in and week out.
i believe illinois is the only quality b10 team that plays an up-tempo, guard-oriented style that works well in the tournament. the b10's typical bump & grind gets swallowed with speed once they face off with gonzaga, creighton, unc, and the like. that said, i've long had the illini as a final 4 sleeper. purdue is my overall winner but only because of their dominating big.
 
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That is not why they fail in the tournament. And most conferences can make same claim about being deep and beat each other up. It’s not a reason it’s an excuse
Yeah that golden oldie gets a ton of air time this time of year. It's like the Big Ten fanboys never get tired of repeating it.
 
Jays struggled hard with Oregon, Tennessee is a more athletic version of the Ducks. It will be interesting to see how they match up.

Creighton shoots the ball well they win. But… if they’re not making shots Tennessee has enough athletes to frustrate Kalkbrenner. Tennessee holds Creighton to less than 70 they likely win. Should be a good game.
 
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Caleb Love determined to ball hog Arizona right out of the tournament.
 
i believe illinois is the only quality b10 team that plays an up-tempo, guard-oriented style that works well in the tournament. the b10's typical bump & grind gets swallowed with speed once they face off with gonzaga, creighton, unc, and the like. that said, i've long had the illini as a final 4 sleeper. purdue is my overall winner but only because of their dominating big.
The B1G winning titles in football and basketball in the same year ... oh my, the fun we'll have with DingDong and his B1G hatred for B1G accomplishments.
 
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Officials seemed to have no idea how to officiate a giant Illini team vs a small ass slappy ISU team.

Oh well...those super-hetro dudes that make the brackets put like the most top 16 Kenpom teams in the same bracket.

So now we get Illini vs Uconn in the E8.
 
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