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NCAA HOOPS THREAD! -- K petitions to get Maui Jim Maui Invitational moved to Transylvania (2 Viewers)

Who is worse?

  • Total voters
    278
Obviously I don't like drawing Arizona, but if you're a 12/13, you're gonna be a big underdog no matter who you play.  A few years ago before the WVU game, UB was a pretty trendy upset pick....this time around it's crickets, because Arizona is so good.  To be honest, I kinda like hearing no chatter about them being a hot upset pick....no pressure, no expectations.  In the handful of games UB has lost this year, they lose when they stop playing their game, play rigid, play slow and deliberate basketball - with no expectations, hopefully they can play loose and just play their game.

Ayton poses a huge - literally and figuratively - matchup problem for anyone, and he will eat UB alive.  The Bulls have only 2 big men who play consistent minutes; they usually rotate in and out to stay fresh.  If either of them gets in foul trouble, which UB is prone to do, it could get ugly.

The Bulls thrive on uptempo basketball.  They're a top-10 scoring offense in the nation and are consistently one the fastest-paced offenses out there.  They want to attack you on defense, pressure the ball, get steals or rebounds and get out into transition immediately.  That sometimes leads to careless play both in terms of offensive turnovers and defensive fouls.  This team is without question better than the 12-seed team that took WVU to the wire and the 14-seed team that hung with Miami a few years ago.  But they also weren't going up against a team like Arizona in those games.

Either way, I'm just happy the game is at 9:40 PM so I can watch it without being at work.

 
Shutout said:
Kentucky as a 5 seed is acceptable but seems to really diminish these conference tournaments. Shipping Kentucky and Arizona so far out their natural areas of play while leaving North carolina in their back yard for what seems like the 10th year in a row screams bias and greed.  We all know the AZ and Kentucky fans will travel to Alaska if need be, but its unfair to the teams like this that get shipped while others ALWAYS get to stay in their own bed pretty much. 
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Kentucky stunk this year.   They just had a great run in their tournament.  NC would've been a #1 seed if they didn't lose to the #1 team in the country.  

 
Steve Tasker said:
Ayton poses a huge - literally and figuratively - matchup problem for anyone, and he will eat UB alive.  The Bulls have only 2 big men who play consistent minutes; they usually rotate in and out to stay fresh.  If either of them gets in foul trouble, which UB is prone to do, it could get ugly.
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Don't forget about AZ's second 7 footer, Ristic...he's well polished Senior that wreaks havoc because of all o the double teams Ayton draws. 

Also, Trier and Alkins are projected NBA draft picks.  

AZ is stacked.

 
TripItUp said:
Don't forget about AZ's second 7 footer, Ristic...he's well polished Senior that wreaks havoc because of all o the double teams Ayton draws. 

Also, Trier and Alkins are projected NBA draft picks.  

AZ is stacked.
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Yeah, it's not just Ayton that they'll have trouble with.  Not only the size, but the experience of their players.  They'd be a tough matchup for anyone.

 
NutterButter said:
What ever happened to Miller's phone call where he's talking about paying Ayton $100k?
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The details of the ESPN leak have not been substantiated,and can't be until the FBI releases the wiretap.

It appears the ESPN leak had a lot of bad datapoints as well, including timeline errors and/or  even the actualy player(wasn't Ayton)

 
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TripItUp said:
They won at UNC...they won't be favored, but they won't be intimidated either.
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They also beat Duke, Arizona, and Clemson.  State is capable of lighting it up from three.  Like any other 8/9 seed they are in a 50/50 game first round but they have the upside to make a run into the second weekend because they can shoot it.

 
Was really hoping Texas Tech would go in even lower and even more unnoticed  :moneybag:

Still likely to throw a bet their way, but I know I won't be happy with that opening line

 
when you are up by 3 with only a few seconds left and shooting a free throw why would you clear out your rebounders? 

Seems everybody is always saying that you should foul when the other team is coming up the court down by 3. Keeping your rebounders in just seems like the smart play then. If you do foul going for the rebound on a miss, so what? That's what you are supposed to do anyway. If you get the rebound, game over. 

The only arguments I have seen against fouling when up by 3 discuss the high % of offensive rebounds when intentionally missing the second free throw. This also kills the argument i hear where you could accidentally foul the guy while he is shooting a 3 and he makes the 3 and then gets one free throw to win which is what happened in a Rutgers/Nova game a while back. 

 
Good luck to everyone's team in the tourney. 

Unfortunately after last years FF run my boys are back to the usual. Oh well, maybe next year.

 
TripItUp said:
Also Beat Duke and other tournament teams....they are more than capable.
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Lousy matchup for NC State.  KU is designed to shoot a lot of threes and prevent opponents from taking/making a lot of them.  The teams that beat KU this year did it by controlling the glass, drawing a lot of fouls, and building up a big edge in FTA.  Does that sound like NC State?  Arizona State was the only one who didn't fit that profile; their big run to put the game away was a long parade of layups early in the second half.  

 
Bruce Dickinson said:
Lousy matchup for NC State.  KU is designed to shoot a lot of threes and prevent opponents from taking/making a lot of them.  The teams that beat KU this year did it by controlling the glass, drawing a lot of fouls, and building up a big edge in FTA.  Does that sound like NC State?  Arizona State was the only one who didn't fit that profile; their big run to put the game away was a long parade of layups early in the second half.  
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Did I miss the part where seton hall forfeited their game with NC St?

 
comfortably numb said:
Did I miss the part where seton hall forfeited their game with NC St?
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Yes.

You also missed the part where it is known by all participants in this thread that all matchups beyond the first round are hypothetical and might not actually happen.  

You also missed the part where a lot of the discussion the next couple days will revolve around picking the winners of 31-35 hypothetical matchups, predicting the winner of a 68-team tournament before a single game is played.  So some of the discussion will be about potential games over the next three weeks that might not actually happen. 

 
Shutout said:
Kentucky as a 5 seed is acceptable but seems to really diminish these conference tournaments. Shipping Kentucky and Arizona so far out their natural areas of play while leaving North carolina in their back yard for what seems like the 10th year in a row screams bias and greed.  We all know the AZ and Kentucky fans will travel to Alaska if need be, but its unfair to the teams like this that get shipped while others ALWAYS get to stay in their own bed pretty much. 
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Or maybe it was because North Carolina was better this season than both Kentucky and Arizona this season by every reasonable measure (RPI, Ken Pom, Sagarin, Quadrant 1 wins, etc.) and thus earned the right to favorable geographic treatment in the early rounds?

Also, just last year UNC and Kentucky played a regional final in Memphis, Tennessee- more convenient for UK's fan base than UNC's, closer to Kentucky than NC and closer to Lexington than Chapel Hill ... despite UNC being the region's 1 seed and Kentucky being in line to be shipped out west to play Gonzaga instead.  :shrug:

 
Is there any possibility that there's any on air personality more insufferable than Dan Dakich?  He's insta-mute at best, turn the channel at worst in my book.

 
parasaurolophus said:
when you are up by 3 with only a few seconds left and shooting a free throw why would you clear out your rebounders? 

Seems everybody is always saying that you should foul when the other team is coming up the court down by 3. Keeping your rebounders in just seems like the smart play then. If you do foul going for the rebound on a miss, so what? That's what you are supposed to do anyway. If you get the rebound, game over. 

The only arguments I have seen against fouling when up by 3 discuss the high % of offensive rebounds when intentionally missing the second free throw. This also kills the argument i hear where you could accidentally foul the guy while he is shooting a 3 and he makes the 3 and then gets one free throw to win which is what happened in a Rutgers/Nova game a while back. 
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1.  So you don't get a lane violation

2.  Don't want to foul and have no time come off the clock

3.  You can't advance the ball on a timeout in college, so on a missed free throw, the clock will run out as they advance the ball 

4.  You want all your defenders standing around the three point line.  If they are trying to rebound, they can't get back fast enough

 
Thorpe said:
1.  So you don't get a lane violation

2.  Don't want to foul and have no time come off the clock

3.  You can't advance the ball on a timeout in college, so on a missed free throw, the clock will run out as they advance the ball 

4.  You want all your defenders standing around the three point line.  If they are trying to rebound, they can't get back fast enough
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1. Lane violation % is almost nil. Much smaller than offensive rebound %. 

2. They still have to intentionally miss the second free throw and get the rebound.

3. The clock will run regardless if you abandon block or not.

4. This is exactly the opposite of where you want your guys if you are trying to foul before they get a chance to shoot a 3. Much more likely you would be able to foul a big man that doesnt shoot free throws so well too as well as eliminating the risk of fouling a guy shooting a heave 3 if you foul on the rebound. 

 
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Penn is the best 16 seed we’ve seen in a while. 127 at Kenpom ahead of some 15 and 14 seeds. Not saying anyone should ever pick a 16 over a 1 though, even a 1 that probably should’ve been a 2 or a 3....

 
I found this WVU homer thread interesting, YMMV

Our travel problem is a combination of 2 sub-problems, one of which was easily predictable years ago when they announced the sites for 2018.

1.) WVU was badly under-seeded this season. It was a mistake by the committee. They said they weren't going to focus on RPI, but they had to either hold our RPI against us or just flat out blow our seeding. The result is we ended up outside the top 4 "protected" seeds in terms of location.

2.) Even if we had made it to the 4 line, it probably wouldn't have helped. All of the 5's (WVU, Kentucky, Clemson, OSU) and half the 4's (Wichita & Auburn) were shipped across the country to SD or Boise. Why? Because the NCAA continues to have 2 of the sites on the west coast even though the likelihood is incredibly low that there will ever be enough top seeds to fill out those locations. You would have to have 3 Pac12 teams + Gonzaga finish in the top 8-12 in the nation. The Pac12 has barely gotten 3 teams in the entire tournament during most seasons this century.

So how could this have been avoided? If either SD or Boise was replaced by a location in literally ANY CITY east of the Mississippi River, the number of top 5 seeds flying across the country would have gone from 6 to 2. Auburn wouldn't have to play Clemson in freaking California.
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Fun bracket-maker from the Wall Street Journal here.  You prioritize offense/defense and then secondary variables like rebounding/3 point shooting/turnovers, indicate how much chaos you want it to incorporate, tell it if you want to hate on Duke or the targets of the FBI investigation, and it runs simulations for you.

 
Scoresman said:
Penn is the best 16 seed we’ve seen in a while. 127 at Kenpom ahead of some 15 and 14 seeds. Not saying anyone should ever pick a 16 over a 1 though, even a 1 that probably should’ve been a 2 or a 3....
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Expanding on this a bit after looking at the matchup,  One of the things I'm looking at is the correlation between various statistical factors and a team's wins and losses.  Kansas has multiple high correlations that factor into their games' results moreso than many other top seeded teams.  Specifically, effective FG%, 3 pt shooting %, and  2 pt shooting defense.  Multiple high correlations like this have historically suggested a victim team.

In other words, Kansas having a cold shooting night, or a matchup against a hot shooting team makes them more prone to being an upset victim than say Michigan St. or Virginia (who don't have high correlations in multiple factors) in the same situation. This of course assumes they are matched up against teams who can exploit these potential vulnerabilities.  

Now, Penn just happens to have the 24th ranked shooting defense in the country, while not giving up a lot of threes, and themselves are shooting at 51.8% in their last 3 games.  

Still not picking the upset here, but it's enough to make me actually pay attention to a 16-1 matchup.  

 
Scoresman said:
Expanding on this a bit after looking at the matchup,  One of the things I'm looking at is the correlation between various statistical factors and a team's wins and losses.  Kansas has multiple high correlations that factor into their games' results moreso than many other top seeded teams.  Specifically, effective FG%, 3 pt shooting %, and  2 pt shooting defense.  Multiple high correlations like this have historically suggested a victim team.

In other words, Kansas having a cold shooting night, or a matchup against a hot shooting team makes them more prone to being an upset victim than say Michigan St. or Virginia (who don't have high correlations in multiple factors) in the same situation. This of course assumes they are matched up against teams who can exploit these potential vulnerabilities.  

Now, Penn just happens to have the 24th ranked shooting defense in the country, while not giving up a lot of threes, and themselves are shooting at 51.8% in their last 3 games.  

Still not picking the upset here, but it's enough to make me actually pay attention to a 16-1 matchup.  
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I've said all year to a couple of guys in our office that I didn't want Kansas to get a #1 seed because this is the year they are susceptible to the upset.

That being said, Kansas is playing really well right now and just won the Big 12 tournament without their #1 inside scoring option, who will be a LOAD for Penn if he is ready to play. 

 
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parasaurolophus said:
1. Lane violation % is almost nil. Much smaller than offensive rebound %. 

2. They still have to intentionally miss the second free throw and get the rebound.

3. The clock will run regardless if you abandon block or not.

4. This is exactly the opposite of where you want your guys if you are trying to foul before they get a chance to shoot a 3. Much more likely you would be able to foul a big man that doesnt shoot free throws so well too as well as eliminating the risk of fouling a guy shooting a heave 3 if you foul on the rebound. 
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1.  Irrelevant.  If you make the free throw you win the game unless there is a lane violation.  If you don't get the offensive rebound, you also win the game almost every time (depends exactly how much time is on clock, but the opposing team will need to hit a halfcourt shot to tie).  So the lane violation is one of the only ways you are going to lose.  Regardless how unlikely it is, you want to avoid it.

2.  Not necessarily.  If fouled on the rebound, they can make both free throws, play for the steal on the inbounds, then foul again if they have 3+ seconds left.  And there is a much greater chance to lose on an intentionally missed free throw than a halfcourt shot that can tie at best.  make the first free throw, miss the second, tap it out to the free throw line and you lose the game.

3.  The point is you are going to win the game even if you don't go for the offensive rebound.

4.  You want some time to run off the clock if you want to try to intentionally foul.   Let them throw it the length of the court and foul them on the catch.

 
parasaurolophus said:
Bill Walton is the worst for me. 
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The guy's insufferable. If you made a drinking game out of the number of times he says "conference of champions" in reference to the Pac-12, you'd be dead of alcohol poisoning before the first TV timeout, although the upside would be that you'd be free of having to listen to Walton anymore. (Do "conferences of champions" typically send just three teams to the tourney, two of which are in the play-in games?)

 
phandango said:
The guy's insufferable. If you made a drinking game out of the number of times he says "conference of champions" in reference to the Pac-12, you'd be dead of alcohol poisoning before the first TV timeout, although the upside would be that you'd be free of having to listen to Walton anymore. (Do "conferences of champions" typically send just three teams to the tourney, two of which are in the play-in games?)
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Man, when they pair him with Dave Pasch it's a riot. Pasch plays the perfect total straight man and digs at Walton so subtly.  It's fantastic.  :lol:

 
Seton Hall/NC State is giving me fits and what sucks is that both can beat Kansas so it's a potentially important one to get right.

 
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I've done 3 brackets so far and have 3 different Final 4's.  As in all 4 teams are different in each bracket.

Holy cow this is a crap shoot this year.  Usually I'm really confident in at least one or two teams making it to the final 4, but with Virginia in the region of death and then Kansas/Duke/Mich State all together, I can't settle on anything.

 
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