NCAA bracket thoughts

[IrishHand]

Is there a tougher draw than the West?? Arizona, Kansas, Duke (all 3 getting #1 votes at some point this year) along with Illinois and Notre Dame (both legitimate top 10s this year). To those big 5, you add underrated Creighton and perennial "Cinderella team" Gonzaga.

As for the #1 seeds...If I'm Texas or Kentucky, I'm very happy right now. If I'm Arizona, I'm pretty pissed off. If I'm Oklahoma, I'm happy to have the #1 seed, but will be sad when Louisville ends my tournament at the Sweet Sixteen.

My Final Four? Kentucky, Texas, Louisville and Duke - the first two for talent/cohesion, the latter two because of coaching.

[J_V]

Illinois got hosed. Analysts were talking about a two seed in the midwest. Instead, they got by far the worst four seed situation in a killer bracket. How could Kansas get a 2 seed? Louisville isn't gonna beat anybody, I don't think by the way.

And please don't say Illinois and Notre Dame in the same breath /forums/images/icons/smile.gif.

I give the bracketologist a flat out F. Nothing is right at the top, maybe they did okay with the bubble teams this time.

[J_V]

Great...and Illinois' round of 32 team will against Notre Dame might as well be on the road in Indianapolis.

[pudley4]

I wouldn't worry too much about ND, they'll lose to UW-Milwaukee in the 1st rd /forums/images/icons/smile.gif

[IrishHand]

And please don't say Illinois and Notre Dame in the same breath
I was trying to be nice to Illini fans by including them in my Notre Dame reference. /forums/images/icons/tongue.gif

As for Indianapolis - how on earth is Indianapolis a WEST site? I had the misfortune of spending a couple of summers there, and I can assure you there's nothing west about it. I disagree about the home-court effect ND might have there - I went to an ND-Cincy game in the Fieldhouse a few years ago, and there were just as many Cincy fans as ND fans. I imagine folks in Chicago will be just as inclined to make the short drive to see the boys in red get spanked by the boys in blue.

As for the bracketologists...I agree. If it were me, I'd just take all the non-mandatory teams, order them by W/L and include RPI and top 25 wins on the sheet. I'd go down it and hopefully choose the best teams for the tourney. (I object, by the way, to the practice of favoring recent performance - being 'hot' does not make you better than a team with a better record against similar opposition that lost 3 of its last 4.) Once I had the 64 teams (and screw those play-in games - just merge low-major conferences /forums/images/icons/smile.gif), I'd rank them in groups of 4 (the seeds, of course). I'd then take each group of 4, and spread them around geographically. Seems simple enough to me. How the 'profeessionals' can have clearly better teams with lower seeds than others is beyond me, as is how they can do things like put #8 Cal in the East with #8 Cincy in the West is another mystery to me.

[Clarkmeister]

Louisville has ability but they haven't been playing well and their draw is simply too tough with Missisippi State and Oklahoma back to back.

Duke simply isn't good enough or deep enough and will lose to the Creighton/Central Michigan winner.

ND is playing awful basketball and will be very fortunate to beat Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

I haven't made my final choices yet, but here are my final four "finalists"

Midwest: Kentucky of Pittsburgh.
West: Arizona or Illinois.
South: Texas or Florida.
East: Oklahoma, Mississippi State or Wake.


Early first round spreads I like:

Oregon -4 vs Utah: The Utes are banged up and the Ducks are hot and experienced. My strongest first round play so far.

Kentucky -27 vs IUPUI: IUPUI isn't very good. Kentucky's second team is better than IUPUI's starters and I think KY might win by 50.

UWM +4.5 vs ND: See above comments.

LSU -4 vs Purdue: Simply a very good team vs a team playing very poorly.

UNCW +8 vs Maryland: Too many points for a tough team.

[Clarkmeister]

As a University of Illinois alumn, don't worry about the site. Indianapolis is closer to the IL campus than Chicago is. I've made the drive dozens of times. 90 minutes flat.

And yes, we got hosed. But at least we have one of the easier paths to the sweet sixteen in the entire field.

I'll be heading to Anaheim for the showdown with Arizona for sure. Just a 4 hour drive from Vegas baby!

[Clarkmeister]

"I was trying to be nice to Illini fans by including them in my Notre Dame reference. "

Please be sure and call me to wager on our respective Alma Maters should your beloved Irish be fortunate enough to advance. /forums/images/icons/smile.gif

"As for Indianapolis - how on earth is Indianapolis a WEST site?"

Its that stupid pod system.

"I object, by the way, to the practice of favoring recent performance - being 'hot' does not make you better than a team with a better record against similar opposition that lost 3 of its last 4.) "

I disagree. I think recent performance is a better indicator of the talent of a team right now. Alabama is not a good team right now. Indiana is not a good team right now. Someone like NC State who finished strong in both the regular season (winning at Duke) and the conference tourney should be rewarded with a higher sead. A team that goes 0-10 then finishes 20-0 should be given the nod over an identical team that goes 20-0 then finishes 0-10.

"and screw those play-in games "

I agree wholeheartedly. Keep it at 64 teams.

[J_V]

Sweet...go Illini. I really like our team, I wasn't a big Frankie fan and I like how hard we play and we are pretty damn deep.

It a crapshoot to say who's gonna come out of the West, but we got a shot.

[Clarkmeister]

We've got a huge shot. Unfortunately we got stuck with IMO the best team in the field as our #1 seed. I think the winner of the IL/AZ showdown wins the west as Kansas is IMO a very beatable team, espeicially with the injury to their big man (whose name escapes me right now, not Collison, the other guy). Duke is a phony and should they get that far shouldn't be able to do much against either team. I think Duke loses in the 2nd round tho.

Frankie was so good, but so inconsistent. I am much higher on Dee Brown than I was on Frankie. I am realy down on Deron Williams right now, however. He takes too many stupid fouls and really doesn't fit into the offensive plan. Self substituting Harrington for him early in the first half was key against OSU today.

No juniors on the team. OMG are we gonna be sweet 2 years from now.

[J_V]

I hear we're bring in the third best recruiting class in the nation and some stud named Villanueve who's 6-9....as long as he doesn't go pro.

[Clarkmeister]

Yes, I wish I remembered more about our class, but I remember reading that it was a coup to get that kid from out east. That would be sweet. Self can recruit, no doubt about that. I like him better than Kruger and I liked Kruger a lot.

Honestly though, I'd almost rather recruit kids that will be around at least 2 and preferably 3 years than these one-and-done guys. They just disrupt the program too much. Thats whats so nice about Dee. You know we keep him for the full 4 years.

Also, Self is starting to lobby for a new arena. I hope he gets it, because it will not only help him recruit but it could also be incentive for him to stay at Illinios for a long time. I'm afraid that he's simply too good to keep longer than 2-3 more years though despite the extension he just signed.

[Clarkmeister]

Here's a link to info on our recruiting class. Pretty nice site. You can click on the names of the 4 players who verbally committed and read tons of articles on each of them.

http://www.illiniboard.com/recruiting/index.php

[scalf]

/forums/images/icons/wink.gif byu does not play sunday games..if they go to sweet 16; they will be moved to thurs/sat regional..so sez ncaa..lol...screw up every office pool in usa...lol...

bringam young sain...bringem young and bringem alll.....gl

[IrishHand]

I disagree. I think recent performance is a better indicator of the talent of a team right now. Alabama is not a good team right now. Indiana is not a good team right now. Someone like NC State who finished strong in both the regular season (winning at Duke) and the conference tourney should be rewarded with a higher sead. A team that goes 0-10 then finishes 20-0 should be given the nod over an identical team that goes 20-0 then finishes 0-10.

I don't have a problem with your two 20-10 teams scenario. I have a problem with the 18-12 being a higher seed than the 20-10 if the opposition is comparable. My objection is based on the fact that a season is a season - and your acheivements therein should be the primary basis of NCAA seeding. If your goal is to seed by "who is the best team right this second", then you should only look at team's records in the past month, or since Christmas. To me, it would be akin to playing a whole MLB season, then choosing your playoff teams with a larger emphasis on team performance in the final two months. Hey - if the 90-72 team won 18 straight to close out the year, they belong in the playoffs while the that 95-67 team that finished 10-10 can take their bags and go home. That's my objection. In the NCAA context, I believe that the best teams, as demonstrated by the full season's play, should fill the at-large bids, and I believe that the seedings of all 64 should again be based on the full season's play.

Respectfully,
Irish

PS. The 2nd round phone call will be forthcoming, slaphog.

[Clarkmeister]

But in the pros, the schedules are somewhat balanced. So comparing only W/L record is reasonable. That's not the case for college hoops even within a conference because non-conference schedules can be so different.

You can't compare Auburn and Alabama strictly on W/L records because their non conference schedules were so totally different. Below is each school's nc record.


Alabama
11/14 No. 3 at Oklahoma W 68-62 1-0
11/22 Alabama State W 82-56 2-0
11/25 Middle Tenn. St. W 80-65 3-0
11/29 at Ohio State W 54-48 4-0
12/3 NC Greensboro W 89-61 5-0
12/7 St. Bonaventure W 77-68 6-0
12/14 Bowling Green W 72-63 7-0
12/21 Providence W 69-61 8-0
12/23 Morehead State W 82-64 9-0
12/30 at Utah L 51-49 9-1
01/4 No. 19 Xavier W 65-58 10-1

Auburn

11/22 Wofford W 81-63 1-0
11/26 Georgia St W 100-71 2-0
12/1 at Western Kentucky L 89-70 2-1
12/2 SE Louisiana W 77-47 3-1
12/4 South Carolina St W 85-65 4-1
12/8 Rutgers W 82-70 5-1
12/14 Murray State W 72-53 6-1
12/17 Western Michigan L 72-54 6-2
12/20 at PR Mayaguez W 93-64 7-2
12/21 Denver W 63-58 8-2
12/22 Troy State W 94-66 9-2
12/30 Southern Miss W 92-46 10-2
01/2 North Texas W 90-65 11-2

Not close. Ugly in fact.

[IrishHand]

I said at least twice above that it was important to factor in things like that. My objection lies with the presumption that big wins in February are more relevant to selection and seeding than big wins in October.

[Clarkmeister]

What the hell happened to your Irish at the end of the year anyways? They totally fell apart.

Can you guys actually play D? If not, UWM is definitely going to send you packing. The Indy crowd might be the only thing that saves you.

[Michael Davis]

I also hate the play-in game, but I would rather have that than eliminate a decent bubble team from contention.

So, if we are going to have play-in games, why not have four of them, one for each region? Everybody knows that most of the teams seeded 14 or lower don't really belong in the tournament anyways. Let a few more of these bubble teams with potential for knocking off very good teams- Texas Tech, Boston College, etc.- get into the tournament. While I like the automatic bids for small schools, these teams are never going to win the tournament, but a team like Texas Tech could, if the planets align properly. So, keep the bids for small schools, add three more play-in games- it makes more sense than one, anyways- and you have a much more competitive first round.

And the Illini getting a four seed is one of the biggest screwings I've seen. I don't understand how the other Big 10 teams got what I consider good seedings- Michigan State and Indiana as 7s- but Illinois still gets screwed. Furthermore, I'm not sure why Duke didn't overleap Wake Forest after winning the ACC. All in all, a truly terrible job done by the bracketmasters.

Mike

[marbles]

"Can you guys actually play D? If not, UWM is definitely going to send you packing. The Indy crowd might be the only thing that saves you."

--Don't forget, at least some of the Indy crowd will consist of Butler fans rooting for a Horizon League victory.

[tewall]

Kansas won the big 12 regular season by going 14-2. If they had beaten Missouri, they would have been a #1 seed. Even if they had lost the first round of the post-season tourney, they couldn't have been worse than a #2.

[IrishHand]

A few choice quotes from the Illini faithful:

pudley4
- I wouldn't worry too much about ND, they'll lose to UW-Milwaukee in the 1st rd /forums/images/icons/smile.gif

Clarkmeister
-ND is playing awful basketball and will be very fortunate to beat Wisconsin-Milwaukee.
-West: Arizona or Illinois
-But at least we have one of the easier paths to the sweet sixteen in the entire field.
-I think the winner of the IL/AZ showdown wins the west
-I'll be heading to Anaheim for the showdown with Arizona for sure.
-Can you guys actually play D? If not, UWM is definitely going to send you packing.

Scoreboard.

[Clarkmeister]

Scoreboard.

It would have been nice if we hadn't missed something on the order of 15 layups.

Scoreboard doesn't lie. Nice win. Sadly, I have a lot of money on AZ to win the whole thing, so I must hope great misfortune befalls you in Anaheim. /forums/images/icons/tongue.gif

Scoreboard. End of discussion.