It sounds easy for Ohio right? All they have to do is win 2 more games and they're in.
In reality that is much, much harder to accomplish. Programs like Gonzaga, Xavier and BYU have been winning for decades and have yet to do it. Butler was able to do it with teams that were built to make deep tourney runs (a very unusual situation for a non-BCS program).
For comparative purposes, I'm going to take a look at George Mason's run in 2006 and VCU's run in the 2011 regionals as to what happened to allow both schools to make a Final Four.
George Mason 2006:
Sweet 16
#11 George Mason 63 #7 Wichita State 55
Elite 8
#11 George Mason 86
#1 Connecticut 84
Virginia Commonwealth 2011:
Sweet 16
#11 Virginia Commonwealth 72 #10 Florida State 71
Elite 8
#11 Virginia Commonwealth 71
#1 Kansas 61
Notice how both schools relied on having a very winnable lower seed opponent in the Sweet 16 game. Having a busted bracket to waltz through is key.
Ohio does not have that playing #1 North Carolina in the Sweet 16. If #11 NC State wins against #2 Kansas they may have the winnable opponent advantage in the Elite 8.
Could Ohio beat UNC with the injury to the starting point guard? I guess it might give the Bobcats a 20% chance which is about the average odds of taking out a #1 seed in a regional semifinal compared with a normal 2.5% chance for a double digit seed to make an Elite 8.
After UNC is its almost impossible to see the Bobcats win the Elite 8 game unless NC State surprises Kansas creating another broken bracket creating a winnable #13 Ohio vs. #11 NC State matchup.
(03-20-2012 05:53 AM)emu steve Wrote: [ -> ]Or conversely, in 1991 EMU beat #5 Mississippi State and then #13 Penn State (which had beaten #4 Notre Dame, I believe).
EMU faced UNC and got killed in the Sweet 16.
Don't want to pop any hopes, but I'd guess UNC wins easily.
Yea.
I would be happy if Ohio kept the loss within single digits.
I don't know- for the first five minutes of the UT game, OU was the best basketball team I'd seen at Savage in many years. Far better than say Temple, who we played earlier. It looked like they would win about 100-20. Cooper made the right pass to the right guy who was in the right spot on every play and OU got every loose ball, every rebound. Then Cooper took the next thirty minutes off and your bigs forgot how to box out. They seem to be playing with much more purpose now- I really believe they'll put up a fight. I still see UNC winning I guess but I won't be shocked if OU pulls off an upset.
(03-20-2012 05:53 AM)emu steve Wrote: [ -> ]Or conversely, in 1991 EMU beat #5 Mississippi State and then #13 Penn State (which had beaten #4 Notre Dame, I believe).
EMU faced UNC and got killed in the Sweet 16.
Don't want to pop any hopes, but I'd guess UNC wins easily.
I wish I had connected the dots a little better with your first post.
What the first post shows is that Mason and VCU had 'great draws' in the Sweet 16 round whereas the '91 EMU team and '02 Ohio team did not.
Hence, if anyone thinks that Ohio is the next VCU or Mason the odds against it are very long.
The difference between EMU '91 and Ohio '02 is that EMU was probably a 20 point underdog whereas Ohio is I believe 10.
The way I see it, all three teams (Ohio, VCU, George Mason) had/have to knock of a #1 seed to make the Final Four happen. The difference is Ohio faces their #1 on a Friday instead of on Sunday. They've been in every game they've played this season and haven't been blown out. They were leading in Louisville with about a 90 seconds left, but lost the game after a questionable offensive foul call.
I fully expect Groce will prepare them to give UNC their best shot and I doubt it will be a blowout. Yes. In the end, UNC probably wins 19 out of 20 of these games. However, DJ Cooper thrives in these games and he may give us an edge at the guard spot if Marshall is out. If he keeps Ohio around at the end, I'm sure the Kansas fans will be more than happy to unleash their inner Bobcat Mojo, so maybe the unthinkable happens.
I know some Ohio fans have expressed that now "we're playing with house money." In the sense that Ohio won't walk away from the tournament disappointed, I agree. It's been a memorable run and Bobcat eyes will turn to next season when everyone is expected to return. In another way, it sounds like a statement of content, and I am sure that's not what the players are thinking.
(03-20-2012 09:43 AM)emu steve Wrote: [ -> ]One of the rules of these tourneys is:
When a team can shoot 'lights out' behind the arc they have a chance.
If D.J. can have the game of his career Ohio has a chance.
It actually depends more on Walt Offutt and Nick Kellogg. We run into problems when Cooper is our only offense. Both need to be aggressively looking for their shots for Ohio to succeed.
Interesting in that I read one article (not sure if on ESPN or USA today) that says that although UNC will really miss Marshall offensively, his back-ups play better perimeter defense.
(03-20-2012 09:12 AM)Bobcat110 Wrote: [ -> ]So we got a chance
The way I see it, all three teams (Ohio, VCU, George Mason) had/have to knock of a #1 seed to make the Final Four happen. The difference is Ohio faces their #1 on a Friday instead of on Sunday. They've been in every game they've played this season and haven't been blown out. They were leading in Louisville with about a 90 seconds left, but lost the game after a questionable offensive foul call.
I fully expect Groce will prepare them to give UNC their best shot and I doubt it will be a blowout. Yes. In the end, UNC probably wins 19 out of 20 of these games. However, DJ Cooper thrives in these games and he may give us an edge at the guard spot if Marshall is out. If he keeps Ohio around at the end, I'm sure the Kansas fans will be more than happy to unleash their inner Bobcat Mojo, so maybe the unthinkable happens.
I know some Ohio fans have expressed that now "we're playing with house money." In the sense that Ohio won't walk away from the tournament disappointed, I agree. It's been a memorable run and Bobcat eyes will turn to next season when everyone is expected to return. In another way, it sounds like a statement of content, and I am sure that's not what the players are thinking.
We'll let NC State worry about Kansas.
It was just the opposite actually. An offensive foul could have been called but a block was called instead resulting in 2 free throws for a Louisville player *Peyton Siva I think. Then we missed on two three point attempts before another player scored two more points on free throws.
(03-20-2012 10:46 PM)Jughead Wrote: [ -> ]It was just the opposite actually. An offensive foul could have been called but a block was called instead resulting in 2 free throws for a Louisville player *Peyton Siva I think. Then we missed on two three point attempts before another player scored two more points on free throws.
You are correct..I remember it being very questionable. It's at 2:07 mark:
