Congrats to Syracuse. Strong win versus San Diego State. 78-62

(03-19-2021 10:41 PM)PusherT Wrote:  SU beating up the MTWC so easy. This was not an upset at all. Put SU in MW we go undefeated lol

6 vs. 11, 7 vs. 10 and 8 vs. 9 are coin flips. You could argue easily for incorrect seeds among those teams.

5 vs. 12, 4 vs. 13 are winnable bracket busters. 3 vs. 14 if its the right matchup.

1 vs. 16 wins 99.5% of the time. 2 vs. 15 wins 94% of the time.

(03-19-2021 10:41 PM)PusherT Wrote:  SU beating up the MTWC so easy. This was not an upset at all. Put SU in MW we go undefeated lol

Syracuse has good athletes. It is tough to beat them with G5 athletes. Syracuse can physically bully those kinds of teams.

I have gotten a lot of picks wrong so far, but not this one. I had Syracuse winning in all my brackets.

Villanova too, but that one is still in doubt.

(03-19-2021 09:15 PM)bill dazzle Wrote:  Major congrats to UNT and Oral Roberts, tonight.

Many of the "little men" took it on the chin.

Good win for Loyola but GaTech was missing its best player.

More to follow ...

I count 3 "real" upsets so far. North Texas, Oral Roberts and Oregon State. A thirteen, twelve and fifteen. Colgate was supposed to be challenging for an upset at fourteen but fell short.

(03-19-2021 11:07 PM)Kit-Cat Wrote:  

(03-19-2021 09:15 PM)bill dazzle Wrote:  Major congrats to UNT and Oral Roberts, tonight.

Many of the "little men" took it on the chin.

Good win for Loyola but GaTech was missing its best player.

More to follow ...

I count 3 "real" upsets so far. North Texas, Oral Roberts and Oregon State. A thirteen, twelve and fifteen. Colgate was supposed to be challenging for an upset at fourteen but fell short.

Oregon State wasn't an upset. Tennessee played without their best player who is injured (multiple facial fractures following the Florida game). Look at Tennessee's record and you will find they were seeded too high based on some early season wins and that when they lost they lost by large margins. L.S.U., Alabama, Arkansas, and Florida were all better and possibly Missouri too.

P5 teams can't pull upsets.

Villanova beats Winthrop.

I knew Villanova wasn't losing to Winthrop.

They will not lose to North Texas either.

(03-19-2021 11:18 PM)Erictelevision Wrote:  P5 teams can't pull upsets.

They can now.....

UCLA, Michigan St and Syracuse all 11 seeds.

(03-19-2021 11:50 PM)Kit-Cat Wrote:  

(03-19-2021 11:18 PM)Erictelevision Wrote:  P5 teams can't pull upsets.

They can now.....

UCLA, Michigan St and Syracuse all 11 seeds.

kind of tough for Michigan St to pull an upset now.

for Sunday

Lot of teams I liked lost and lot of teams I won lost but at the end of the day my two favorite teams won so I'm happy about that. Villanova finally won without Gillespie.

(03-20-2021 12:53 AM)stever20 Wrote:  for Sunday

Too many night games for a Sunday, should be more afternoon games. This would be a good schedule for a Monday though.

Lucas Oil is getting just one game? And do they really believe Houston-Rutgers is the best game of the day on Sunday?

(03-20-2021 06:16 AM)schmolik Wrote:  Lot of teams I liked lost and lot of teams I won lost but at the end of the day my two favorite teams won so I'm happy about that. Villanova finally won without Gillespie.

On this theme, Schmolik, do you cheer more so for Illinois and Villanova than you do for Penn State and Temple? And don't you have another school you like?

I have the Illini going to the title game (and losing to Gonzaga). Illinois is impressive. Good luck to your teams.

(03-20-2021 06:20 AM)schmolik Wrote:  

(03-20-2021 12:53 AM)stever20 Wrote:  for Sunday

Too many night games for a Sunday, should be more afternoon games. This would be a good schedule for a Monday though.

Lucas Oil is getting just one game? And do they really believe Houston-Rutgers is the best game of the day on Sunday?

I actually am pleased about all the night games. Works better for my Sunday schedule. But I would think lots of folks might agree with you.

(03-20-2021 07:06 AM)bill dazzle Wrote:  

(03-20-2021 06:16 AM)schmolik Wrote:  Lot of teams I liked lost and lot of teams I won lost but at the end of the day my two favorite teams won so I'm happy about that. Villanova finally won without Gillespie.

On this theme, Schmolik, do you cheer more so for Illinois and Villanova than you do for Penn State and Temple? And don't you have another school you like?

I have the Illini going to the title game (and losing to Gonzaga). Illinois is impressive. Good luck to your teams.

Well the simple fact is Illinois and Villanova win more in men's basketball. In football I cheer for Penn State more. I do have a soft spot for Illinois because it's my undergrad. I spent four years there vs. two at Penn State. Illinois was my first college experience and my first time away from home. When I was at Penn State it was been there done that and I was comparing it to Illinois.

(03-19-2021 11:03 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(03-19-2021 10:41 PM)PusherT Wrote:  SU beating up the MTWC so easy. This was not an upset at all. Put SU in MW we go undefeated lol

Syracuse has good athletes. It is tough to beat them with G5 athletes. Syracuse can physically bully those kinds of teams.

I have gotten a lot of picks wrong so far, but not this one. I had Syracuse winning in all my brackets.

Villanova too, but that one is still in doubt.

Tough to bet against Boeheim and the zone in the early rounds. Fortunately for WVU Coach Huggybear has seen the zone before... we'll see how they respond

(03-19-2021 09:39 PM)_C2_ Wrote:  It's a crapshoot. Tournament success doesn't necessarily prove a team or conference is overrated. Any given day, anything can happen. They call it March Madness for a reason.

Eh, the knockout format creates some randomness, some madness, but it's not a "crapshoot", that's putting it too strongly. If you're better, you usually win. Not always, upsets happen, but usually.

(03-20-2021 08:02 AM)TexanMark Wrote:  

(03-19-2021 11:03 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(03-19-2021 10:41 PM)PusherT Wrote:  SU beating up the MTWC so easy. This was not an upset at all. Put SU in MW we go undefeated lol

Syracuse has good athletes. It is tough to beat them with G5 athletes. Syracuse can physically bully those kinds of teams.

I have gotten a lot of picks wrong so far, but not this one. I had Syracuse winning in all my brackets.

Villanova too, but that one is still in doubt.

Tough to bet against Boeheim and the zone in the early rounds. Fortunately for WVU Coach Huggybear has seen the zone before... we'll see how they respond

JB has a remarkable record in the early rounds. IIRC, he has advanced SYR to the Sweet 16 slightly *more* than half the 36 times he has made the tournament, that's very strong. I mean, great really. But I think he was doing that before he fully committed to the 2-3 zone in the late 1990s, so IMO it's just more about his coaching than the zone.

(03-19-2021 09:18 PM)ken d Wrote:  

(03-19-2021 09:13 PM)JRsec Wrote:  

(03-19-2021 08:59 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  

(03-19-2021 08:55 PM)johnintx Wrote:  North Texas over Purdue, 78-69 in OT.

Very happy for the Mean Green.

It would be very frustrating to be a Purdue fan. They are a well-respected, well-supported program. A lot of people would never know it, but they haven't been to a Final Four since 1980.

Coached by Lee Rose, who then inexplicably left Purdue to take the job at my USF.

Led by Joe Barry Carroll, a formidable 7-footer who was a good NBA center for about 10 years, and Roosevelt Barnes, who never made the NBA but played several years as a linebacker in the NFL.

You are going to have to explain very carefully to me why the ratings systems aren't skewed and why the Big 10 and the ACC (counting Mich St.'s play in loss) deserved 16 slots between them or roughly 1/4 of the total field???

So far North Carolina, Virginia Tech, and Georgia Tech have lost for the ACC 0-3 with two relatively tight games still underway, and Michigan State, Ohio State, and Purdue have lost with Illinois getting a win against Drexel and Wisconsin killing North Carolina (with the ACC looking very suspect and Drexel being a #16 seed) make them deserving of the "special" consideration their schools get over everyone else annually in this Tournament?

It has been pretty clear that West Coast and Southern schools and G5 and lower schools just don't get due consideration. I wouldn't be surprised at all if Michigan gets stunned tomorrow. They drew a pretty game team to open with. The issue is the preseason over ranking of the Northeaster, Atlantic Coast and Big 10 schools. When they start high, and particularly this year play among themselves, of course their RPI's remain high even if the mediocre.

I'll always hate computers! Garbage and bias in, garbage and bias out, and then garbage and bias justifications from the peanut gallery! With the exception of Baylor which I did overlook in my post where I was challenging the field ahead of time, I do think there will be a dearth of P5's present in final four. I do believe Gonzaga and Baylor will be there. The Bears will face a test with the Hogs if the Hogs stay hot. But the rest Quo is going to be wide open with some welcomed surprises.

You'd have to be more than careful. You'd have to be downright creative to justify 16 bids.

It's the oldest trick in the books, using tournament performance to justify whether teams "belong" in the NCAA Tournament. If we go by that criteria, half of the teams every year won't belong in the field. You have to be a complete idiot if you believe Ohio State and Purdue didn't belong in this year's NCAA Tournament. The time to judge who belongs and who doesn't belong in the NCAA Tournament is before the tournament starts. The NCAA doesn't know who's going to win games in the NCAA Tournament any more than anyone here. If they did, the higher seeded team would win every game in the NCAA Tournament or at the very least all the #1 seeds would make the Final Four every year (and that's happened once since they started seeding teams). Even saying a bubble team that wins a game or two belongs in the field is questionable. George Mason in 2006 made the Final Four. Hofstra swept them that year. Who's to say if they got a bid they wouldn't have made the Final Four? Aren't they a better team based on the fact that they beat them twice in the regular season? We don't know if Louisville would have won a game in the NCAA Tournament. You can say North Carolina, Clemson, and Virginia Tech lost but Syracuse won so you can throw that logic out the window. Teams deserve to make the NCAA Tournament based on their season resume, not based on their NCAA Tournament performance.

(03-19-2021 11:26 PM)quo vadis Wrote:  Villanova beats Winthrop.

I knew Villanova wasn't losing to Winthrop.

They will not lose to North Texas either.

I don't know. I watched Villanova beat Winthrop last night, and I didn't see where Nova was any better than Purdue. I think the Mean Green could beat them too. We will find out tomorrow.