Ay ay ay ... my Gophs.

Fantastic season, though! Pitino (the son) unquestionably COY for the regular season in the Big Ten.

Middling Tennessee .... by far the ugliest players in the tournament. But they won! Congrats to the Blue Raiders! Enjoy your second one-and-done in as many years, Butler has it easy now on Saturday.


Now the rest of the night I can root against Wisconsin, and root for Maryland and Purdue. NW already won, which is great news!

Oy, Villanova.

Monkey's off Jay's back. Now Nova can go back to departing by the end of the first weekend.

(03-16-2017 07:04 PM)The Cutter of Bish Wrote:  Oy, Villanova.

Monkey's off Jay's back. Now Nova can go back to departing by the end of the first weekend.

Since no #1 has ever lost to a #16, there would be nothing ordinary about a Nova loss.

It would be earthshattering.

Sent from my SCH-I535 using CSNbbs mobile app

Well, Nova won by 20. As did Gonzaga.

Pretty much sums up the tournament so far: a dud.


11 games in the books, and only one true upset, with low/mid-major MTSU beating Minnesota.

Xavier over Maryland is not an upset ... that's just a team from the P6 in basketball beating another team from the P6 in basketball.

*

(03-16-2017 08:37 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  Well, Nova won by 20. As did Gonzaga.

Pretty much sums up the tournament so far: a dud.


11 games in the books, and only one true upset, with low/mid-major MTSU beating Minnesota.

Xavier over Maryland is not an upset ... that's just a team from the P6 in basketball beating another team from the P6 in basketball.

20 is nothing in a 1/16 matchup. At least both games were reasonably close for a half+.

I want my day back.

It's like that sometimes. I'd have preferred an extra upset or two myself.

No complaints here. My bracket is 15 out of 16 and it would be 16 out of 16 except for that Vanderbilt brain freeze at the end of their game. Of course that probably means I'll go 9 for 16 on Friday's games and two of my final four teams will lose by the end of the weekend.

I'm down 7 teams already, 2 Sweet 16 teams. (ETSU and Nevada)

That's your fault for picking two lower seeds like that to go to the Sweet 16.

I went overboard picking 5/12 and 4/13 upsets.

(03-16-2017 11:02 PM)IWokeUpLikeThis Wrote:  I want my day back.

Not worth vacation days.

Really no upsets. Xavier and MTSU were both underseeded. Xavier's tailspin at the end justified a seeding slight, but all the way to the 11 line? And, the committee exposed itself with MTSU... they don't watch mid-majors. Couldn't get over the early slip to TSU and figured this CUSA was the same as last year's.

(03-16-2017 08:37 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  Well, Nova won by 20. As did Gonzaga.

Pretty much sums up the tournament so far: a dud.


11 games in the books, and only one true upset, with low/mid-major MTSU beating Minnesota.

Xavier over Maryland is not an upset ... that's just a team from the P6 in basketball beating another team from the P6 in basketball.

Disagree. I don't define a tourney by upsets, in fact to me, upsets are cheap thrills, they give for a moment but ruin bigger games down the road.

I mean seriously, what game would you rather see in a regional final, Villanova vs Duke, or Villanova vs East Tennessee State?

To me, blowouts make a tourney a dud, and there were a lot of games that went down to the wire today, fun games to watch.

Upsets are fun as long as there aren't too many. While it's cool to see the best teams survive for as long as possible, I'm reasonably sure no one outside Virginia really tuned in to watch Virginia play UNCW and I'd assume most were hoping like Hell for an upset. If they had lost, few outside Virginia would care. Likewise, if we got too many UNCW versus Winthrops or Bucknell versus Princetons that'd also drag the quality down. Getting one or two Cinderellas in the Sweet 16 is optimal and the rest should hopefully be the cream of the crop.

One thing I wish they'd do, though I know it's logistically impossible is reseed after each round. That way one pair of upsets can't lead to a scenario where an 11-14 seed or a 12-13 seed is guaranteed to advance to the Sweet 16 because they both pulled upsets while a 1-seed at best has to play a 9 to get there. A worse team gets a better reward because of where they are and what happened in their bracket. Maybe they could reseed after the second round and Elite 8.

(03-16-2017 08:37 PM)MplsBison Wrote:  Well, Nova won by 20. As did Gonzaga.

Pretty much sums up the tournament so far: a dud.


11 games in the books, and only one true upset, with low/mid-major MTSU beating Minnesota.

Xavier over Maryland is not an upset ... that's just a team from the P6 in basketball beating another team from the P6 in basketball.

Depends on what you call an upset. MTSU was favored in that game. And Maryland was only a 2 point favorite over Xavier. The only two betting favorites to lose yesterday were Maryland and Vanderbilt (also a 2 pt favorite).

I'm looking for today to have more surprises (but then there almost have to be). I could see Dayton upsetting Wichita State (6 pt fav) and USC knocking off SMU (-6).

But it's hard for me to see one of the 8 double digit favorites going down. If I had to pick one, it would be Baylor.

I don't think one can interpret much about upsets. They happen for so many different reasons. At the core of it, one team just outplays another, regardless of seed.

This tournament, though, with the way the mid-majors are seeded...kind of makes it a little different. At least to me, it is. For everyone not named Gonzaga to exist at the 6-line and over, and both those 6's getting the play-in teams, and the 7/10 pairings...I really want to see this committee eat ****.

Xavier is my bracket Krypton...I always pick them wrong...

BTW, Yesterday (Thursday) was fairly blah. Hoping for more chaos on Friday.

(03-17-2017 06:14 AM)quo vadis Wrote:  To me, blowouts make a tourney a dud, and there were a lot of games that went down to the wire today, fun games to watch.

Perfectly valid viewpoint. Fair enough!

(03-17-2017 08:43 AM)ken d Wrote:  Depends on what you call an upset. MTSU was favored in that game. And Maryland was only a 2 point favorite over Xavier. The only two betting favorites to lose yesterday were Maryland and Vanderbilt (also a 2 pt favorite).

(03-17-2017 09:24 AM)The Cutter of Bish Wrote:  I don't think one can interpret much about upsets. They happen for so many different reasons. At the core of it, one team just outplays another, regardless of seed.

I'm talking purely from the viewpoint of TV execs.

They're banking that the average casual fan, who tunes in because its a thing to do and because filling out a bracket is a thing to do, will care most when team A is seeded "below" team B and wins the game. The "Madness" of March, which is the sole marketing focus.

Betting lines, while not invalid in the slightest, I don't think are how most of these casual viewers look at games. They look at seeds.

Well the first two games are looking interesting!

Okla St v Michigan isn't worthy of being called an upset, but New Mexico St over Baylor would absolutely be!