2014 OFFICIAL NCAA Tournament Thread: Connecticut wins the title

[Matthean]

ESPN chat is talking about a sad day for the McCaffery family but nobody is officially posting anything.

EDIT: http://www.cbssports.com/collegebask...o-be-malignant

[nol]

Originally Posted by BishopMVP

NCAA tournament loss didn't hurt Kyrie Irving. Parker wasn't even the worst potential top 10 pick on that floor - Rodney Hood might've played himself out of the lottery.

It didn't hurt him because 1) he played decently during the multiple games Duke played in the tournament because they actually made it out of the first round and 2) nobody else that year was any good.

It's not going out on a major limb to say he won't end up as the first pick - I'm pretty sure I made a post here earlier this season saying Parker would end up in the top 2-3 when the mock drafts had him at 5-6.

[nol]

Originally Posted by Matthean

I think if a 1 seed ever falls to a 16 seed it has to be something similar to the Kansas situation.

There would also need to be a lot of chalk in the smaller conference tournaments for the 16 seeds to be as good as possible.

[Matthean]

File away for next year when doing brackets.

A First Four team has made 2nd round all four years since tourney went to 68 teams.

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by Matthean

I think if a 1 seed ever falls to a 16 seed it has to be something similar to the Kansas situation.

Ehh... Embiid had some great games and stretches, but overall he wasn't even Kansas' best player. This wasn't Kenyon Martin or Marcus Camby dragging some average/above-average players to a 1 seed - every single Kansas starter would be by far the best player on this EKU team. Kansas is only in a game because they turned the ball over 13 times in the first 15 minutes. Kansas is dominating shooting and rebounding.

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by nol

It didn't hurt him because 1) he played decently during the multiple games Duke played in the tournament because they actually made it out of the first round and 2) nobody else that year was any good.

It's not going out on a major limb to say he won't end up as the first pick - I'm pretty sure I made a post here earlier this season saying Parker would end up in the top 2-3 when the mock drafts had him at 5-6.

He got dominated in that loss by the other potential #1 pick Derrick Williams and it really didn't matter.

I'd still take Wiggins over Parker, but I don't think this game will have any effect on his eventual draft position. I do think this slightly ups the chance he comes back to school for another year.

[BishopMVP]

"I think Eastern Kentucky needs to hit some shots here in the 2nd half because it allows you to set your defense and will give you some confidence."

Disagree Len - I think EKU needs to hit some shots because that's how you score points.

[nol]

Originally Posted by BishopMVP

He got dominated in that loss by the other potential #1 pick Derrick Williams and it really didn't matter.

I'd still take Wiggins over Parker, but I don't think this game will have any effect on his eventual draft position. I do think this slightly ups the chance he comes back to school for another year.

Yeah, we're talking about the same thing. This game doesn't change much, but Parker could have had a decent shot at being chosen over Wiggins if he had gone off for a few games while Wiggins struggled.

But I'll agree to disagree on the "Derrick Williams dominated Irving" angle because Irving had 28 himself and it's not like either one spent any time guarding the other.

[SackAttack]

Originally Posted by Matthean

File away for next year when doing brackets.

Big part of that might be the teams they're picking for the First Four. You see a lot of fringe major conference teams in those games. The idea of the play-in, people might immediately think of 16 seeds, but that isn't how it's worked out. They haven't gone to four play-ins for 16's. You see play-ins for 11 seeds, 12 seeds...

So, yeah, given that, I'd *expect* at least one First Four team to be advancing every year.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by BishopMVP

Ehh... Embiid had some great games and stretches, but overall he wasn't even Kansas' best player. This wasn't Kenyon Martin or Marcus Camby dragging some average/above-average players to a 1 seed - every single Kansas starter would be by far the best player on this EKU team. Kansas is only in a game because they turned the ball over 13 times in the first 15 minutes. Kansas is dominating shooting and rebounding.

Except probably Tharpe, which is how you end up with 13 turnovers in the first 15 minutes.

SI

[RainMaker]

Kansas needing a lot of help from the officials to hang on. Might be in trouble in round 2.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

Kansas needing a lot of help from the officials to hang on. Might be in trouble in round 2.

With the Embiid injury, Kansas has not seemed like much more than a 2/3rd shot to get to the Sweet 16. Even with him, we've been shaky but this gives a ready made excuse

SI

[PilotMan]

Great to see Duke go out that fast. Great job by Mercer. They played their asses off.

[RainMaker]

Not sure how Mercer was a 14 seed. As fun as it is to see Duke out, they did get burned by the seeding.

[sterlingice]

Wow. Okie State-Gonzaga refs getting paid by the foul?

SI

[PilotMan]

My bracket is officially blown beyond repair. I did much better last year.

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

Not sure how Mercer was a 14 seed. As fun as it is to see Duke out, they did get burned by the seeding.

Mercer's 80th in RPI, and no one below them got a better seed. Mercer showed some fight in losing at Texas by 3, but close losses don't matter for seeding and their only win against an RPI team better than 138 was one at Mississippi. They're actually not even the "best" 14 seed - Western Michigan was 69th in RPI.

[Buccaneer]

Originally Posted by PilotMan

My bracket is officially blown beyond repair. I did much better last year.

My son's bracket is still ok but he got really hurt with Stanford beating UNM.

[RainMaker]

Originally Posted by BishopMVP

Mercer's 80th in RPI, and no one below them got a better seed. Mercer showed some fight in losing at Texas by 3, but close losses don't matter for seeding and their only win against an RPI team better than 138 was one at Mississippi. They're actually not even the "best" 14 seed - Western Michigan was 69th in RPI.

They just looked much better than most 14 seed teams. And with what FGCU did last year, maybe the A-Sun is being vastly underrated.

[sterlingice]

This is just ugly and painful to watch. TIme to grab a shower before the next set of games get too deep

SI

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by PilotMan

My bracket is officially blown beyond repair. I did much better last year.

This is easily the worst I've done in the opening round in awhile, but I lucked out in that only 1 other person out of 26 in my money pool has Arizona winning like I do. He has Mich/Mich St/'Cuse in the Final 4, I have Florida/Louisville/Villanova (my "unique" pick), so I still have a fairly clear path to winning if Arizona can carry me.

53 fouls (and counting) in this Ok State-Gonzaga game. It wouldn't have made a difference (ticky-tack reffing probably would've fouled out all our bigs against Maymon/Stokes), but UMass/Tennessee had like 11 in the first half. Noticeably different levels of contact allowed.

Btw, what did the announcer say about Karnowski that he's repeatedly apologizing for?

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by BishopMVP

This is easily the worst I've done in the opening round in awhile, but I lucked out in that only 1 other person out of 26 in my money pool has Arizona winning like I do. He has Mich/Mich St/'Cuse in the Final 4, I have Florida/Louisville/Villanova (my "unique" pick), so I still have a fairly clear path to winning if Arizona can carry me.

53 fouls (and counting) in this Ok State-Gonzaga game. It wouldn't have made a difference (ticky-tack reffing probably would've fouled out all our bigs against Maymon/Stokes), but UMass/Tennessee had like 11 in the first half. Noticeably different levels of contact allowed.

Btw, what did the announcer say about Karnowski that he's repeatedly apologizing for?

He said it was "Hack a Polack" time when they went after Karnowski.

SI

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by RainMaker

They just looked much better than most 14 seed teams. And with what FGCU did last year, maybe the A-Sun is being vastly underrated.

Yeah, those computers are biased against them

Duke had that 1-pt win over Vermont, and worse loss to Notre Dame early in the year. The narrative is that Duke's looked a lot better recently because they beat good teams, but they still had that 10-pt loss to a bad Wake team and questionable victory over a Clemson team right around Mercer's level in the last few games. They were a 3 seed, not a 1 seed, for a reason.

Down to 6 perfect brackets at ESPN.

[SportsDino]

Wish I went back and made my billion dollar bracket consistent with ESPN so I could track them in on one page. My ESPN bracket is at 21 of 24 and doing all right on the games underway (99.9% yay). My Yahoo bracket, which only has minor differences, is 17 of 24.

The only differences are the four losses with no ripple effects (I still have a little bleeding from Duke to come though but that was the same in both). I couldn't remember my 7-10 and 6-11 upsets correctly for the first round.

If I'm perfect for the rest of the tourney I will end up 4 games back in the imperfect copy I made for Yahoo. I couldn't even make mistakes that had a chance!

It still is a snowball in hell likely to melt at any moment, but it would be ironic if the primary bracket would end up placing since I play 2 per year for ages (1 is B1G MSU always wins bracket).

[mauchow]

Of the 7 ESPN brackets, none have MSU or Florida as winners.

One of them has a final four of Dayton, North Dakota st, Wichita and North Carolina.

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by BishopMVP

Yeah, those computers are biased against them

I think we've reached that adolescent point where we were with baseball stats about 10 years ago. Ranking stats are starting to get popular but used in a lot of bad ways kindof like some people use WAR now without much context (like neglecting that the defensive stats are way out of whack one year).

SI

[Matthean]

Originally Posted by mauchow

Of the 7 ESPN brackets, none have MSU or Florida as winners.

One of them has a final four of Dayton, North Dakota st, Wichita and North Carolina.

I get upsets happen, but the quality teams will start to win out. I say go crazy until about the Sweet 16. After that you get very few legit underdogs winning out.

[Suicane75]

So nerve racking that TruTV isn't on Comcasts basic tier.

[mauchow]

OH, man, not even close... missed by about a foot. Moving onto the next game.

[mauchow]

Originally Posted by Matthean

I get upsets happen, but the quality teams will start to win out. I say go crazy until about the Sweet 16. After that you get very few legit underdogs winning out.

Yeah, I wonder if they made any other brackets without so many reaches.. Oh, well; likely done after a few more hours anyway.

[Ragone]

If you had coastal Carolina as the last team
In the tourney from the Carolina's.. You could have
Made some money heh

[Matthean]

Duke and possibly UNC going out in round one.

[henry296]

Originally Posted by Ragone

If you had coastal Carolina as the last team
In the tourney from the Carolina's.. You could have
Made some money heh

Nc central is still left too

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by sterlingice

I think we've reached that adolescent point where we were with baseball stats about 10 years ago. Ranking stats are starting to get popular but used in a lot of bad ways kindof like some people use WAR now without much context (like neglecting that the defensive stats are way out of whack one year).

SI

I think people decently understand the limitations. The bigger issue is that there are so few OOC games (13ish each team), and the teams from power conferences do rarely go on the road against a team on the A-Sun's level. But it's still hard to argue the A-Sun is underrated as a whole. Mercer and FGCU are obviously the upper-tier of it, but the conference as a whole was 4-34 vs. power conference teams (wins over Ole Miss, Seton Hall, VaTech and South Carolina). RPI has plenty of issues, but it's a decent quick reference point, and the only top 100 wins the entire conference had were Mercer over Ole Miss and ETSU over Stephen F. Austin.

Mercer may be better than a typical 14 seed, but if they are it's because there is more parity than ever, not because the committee under-seeded them. Manhattan, NM State, Harvard, ND State, (UNC-Central), Louisiana-Lafayette - there were a solid number of auto-bid teams in that 12-14 range that have looked very good the last 2 days.



I could watch Bryce Cotton and Marcus Paige go at it all day. Go OT!

[sterlingice]

The back and forth between Carolina and Providence is fun

SI

[BishopMVP]

(If McAdoo hits a FT here, which is no gimme) Providence kinda blew that by not going for the 2 for 1 opportunity.

[SirFozzie]

Providence looks like the moment's caught up with them

[mauchow]

UNC gonna pull this off.. or is it going to be our first buzzer beater when behind coming right now?

[sterlingice]

C'mon, Buzzer beater time!

SI

[dzilla77]

Wow - gotta get a board!

[sterlingice]

Man, poor Providence

SI

[Peregrine]

Wow we just barely missed the worst two days for North Carolina (the state) basketball in a long time. Would have been devastating to see Duke, NC State and UNC all drummed out in the first round.

[Thomkal]

Big game of the night is starting! CCU vs Virginia

[Scarecrow]

Seriously, an 'administrative' technical for a dunk during warm ups???

[sterlingice]

What a stupid rule. Some K-State walkon engineering major dunked in warmups and they gave a technical to them and Kentucky started the game up 1-0 before the tip.

SI

[Thomkal]

Coastal off to a surprisingly good start, ahead by 4

[mauchow]

OOOH MY LOOOORD! FOUL ON A 3 POINTER! 4 pt play to t ie!?!?

[sterlingice]

Originally Posted by mauchow

OOOH MY LOOOORD! FOUL ON A 3 POINTER! 4 pt play to t ie!?!?

Holy crap! That was amazing!

SI

[EagleFan]

Are you freaking kidding me? Defender has one job there DON'T FOUL.

[mauchow]

FUCKIN NAILS IT. WOW