2017 NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament

[miami_fan]

Originally Posted by Butter

How many more fucking times am I going to have to watch a team down 1 or 2 just dribble around and take a deep 3 with under five seconds left? How about drive and kick or drive and draw a foul or drive and make a basket.

How many more days are there left in the tournament?

[muns]

That stupid shot was head coaches fault. So was that stupid foul. When you freaking call your last time out with 8 mins left to go in a game. Shit like that occurs.

Honestly this year there seems like there have been some major coach screw ups than usual costing kids games

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[miami_fan]

I will be paying special attention to the number of drive and kicks I see in the night games. I would not expect teams to run those plays at the end of games if it is not something they are doing during the rest of the games. I am guessing there will be much more dribble handoffs or random pull up jumpers a la Steph.

[Butter]

The Mount just held Villanova scoreless for 5 1/2 minutes. Downside, they only scored five points themselves. They need to be up 13-0 at this point. For a 1-16 upset to happen, it will take something extraordinary like that.

[muns]

Kinda crazy how nova is letting this game be played. Slow and steady. 3:00 left in first half and they still have never lead

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[tarcone]

I imagine Villanova wins by 20. I cant see them coming out flat in the 2nd. I bet a butt chewing wakes them up.

[miami_fan]

Xavier is struggling with this press.

Well until now..

[tarcone]

Originally Posted by tarcone

I imagine Villanova wins by 20. I cant see them coming out flat in the 2nd. I bet a butt chewing wakes them up.

Dang. I should be in Vegas betting.

[miami_fan]

The FGCU-FSU first half was a lot of fun. This might be the game that goes down to the wire and the last play will be a drive to the basket.

[JPhillips]

Originally Posted by miami_fan

The FGCU-FSU first half was a lot of fun. This might be the game that goes down to the wire and the last play will be a drive to the basket.

Neither team is great, but they sure are entertaining.

And that Ojo is one seriously big dude.

[mauchow]

On Wisconsin. Should be a good Sweet 16 matchup against Nova Saturday night.. oh, wait, Badgers somehow got an 8 seed not a 5(a 6 imo, but it doesn't work in this scenario to match up with nova in S16 ). My bad.

Bring it on Nova! Let's go Seniors! You got this!

[digamma]

There are a couple of pretty divergent lines vs. KenPom games today. One is the URI-Creighton game where KP has Creighton by 3 and the lines I've seen have URI -1. I think this is mostly due to Creighton suspension/injuries.

But in the Joe Public loves March Madness favorites category, Duke is -20, but KP shows this as a 15 point game. UNC is -26.5 vs. 23 on KP and Kansas is -23.5 vs. 20 on KP. If you don't mind big dogs, it could be your spot.

[Butter]

If you need a team to root for tonight, why not Dayton?

Dayton inspired by late center Steve McElvene

For Number 5

[Kodos]

I'm rooting for the Flyers. Which is the kiss of death, of course.

[Easy Mac]

Baylor's uniforms are murdering my phone screen's contrast.

[muns]

I don't think Baylor understands what defense is. Goodness gracious are they terrible at defending everything

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[Butter]

I feel like Baylor and West Virginia depend so much on having big athletic mismatches, that when we get to the tournament and there aren't teams that are intimidated by them, they don't do as well.

Seeing it again today. Baylor has blocked a few shots, but it's not stopping NMSU from getting in the lane and making shots.

[CrescentMoonie]

Baylor's athleticism and basketball ability are inversely proportional.

[CrescentMoonie]

I've now missed 3 games in my bracket by 5 total points.

[cartman]

Don't think the Seton Hall coach drew up a Flagrant 1 plan in that timeout.

[Logan]

Originally Posted by cartman

Don't think the Seton Hall coach drew up a Flagrant 1 plan in that timeout.

Anything but a two-handed shove there and he's fine. Just dumb.

[heybrad]

The USC-SMU game has been pretty insane.

[TroyF]

Originally Posted by heybrad

The USC-SMU game has been pretty insane.

Having witnessed it first hand, it was not insane, it was one of the dumbest displays of basketball I have ever witnessed first hand. SMU choked this one badly. They changed their offense in the second half for reasons I will never understand. The right team won the game, the better team lost it.

[JonInMiddleGA]

That SMU loss kinda dinged my bracket a little more than I'd have liked.
Kinda ... annoying to have one that seemed like a done deal suddenly go south.

[CrescentMoonie]

SMU probably killed my bracket. Had them making an Elite 8 run.

[murrayyyyy]

Originally Posted by Logan

Anything but a two-handed shove there and he's fine. Just dumb.

At least I don't sound like a homer for telling people the same. In football 2 hands in the back is pass interference. I don't care if you think a player flopped or not (while being tripped). In football it makes sense to people, in the NCAA tourney people were even arguing to swallow the whistle on that play.

[muns]

Scoochie Smith putting on another show in an ncaa game for dayton. He is so fun to watch

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[Karlifornia]

Originally Posted by TroyF

Having witnessed it first hand, it was not insane, it was one of the dumbest displays of basketball I have ever witnessed first hand. SMU choked this one badly. They changed their offense in the second half for reasons I will never understand. The right team won the game, the better team lost it.

To be fair, the reason SMU "changed their offense" was because USC switched to a zone in the second half. Give credit where credit is due.

[JPhillips]

I hate the Dayton/WSU matchup. Both of these teams should be in the next round.

[B & B]

starting at the 8 min mark there has been questionable call after questionable call going against Dayton. No dog in the fight, just my independent observation.

[Young Drachma]

Originally Posted by JPhillips

I hate the Dayton/WSU matchup. Both of these teams should be in the next round.

Committee is terrible about doing these kinds of matchups.

[Butter]

Originally Posted by B & B

starting at the 8 min mark there has been questionable call after questionable call going against Dayton. No dog in the fight, just my independent observation.

They definitely seemed to be calling expected fouls instead of actual fouls. Alas. Dayton had nobody step up offensively to help Scoochie and couldn't get some key rebounds.

Tough draw, tough game to lose. I thought it was very hard fought though and am trying not to be too disappointed.

Just have to hope we can hold onto Archie now though as the program is at a turning point... Good New class of a lot of players coming in that could all disappear if Archie leaves.

[mauchow]

MSU starts off terribly, turnover after turnover and dumb shot after dumb shot. They fell behind 10-0 and in true Izzo style where you shouldn't doubt them in the tourney, have gone on a 35-15 run down to the final minute of half.

Now they look like world beaters.

[JonInMiddleGA]

Okay, that's a not too bad run by SC right here. Dang.

[Butter]

This first round mostly sucked. Capped off with four blowouts Friday night. Suh-weet.

[CrescentMoonie]

It's was a very good Thursday and an okay Friday. The majority of the blowouts were either late game pulling away situations or matchups of 1/16-4/13. Almost all the 5/12 or closer pairings were good games.

[TroyF]

Originally Posted by Karlifornia

To be fair, the reason SMU "changed their offense" was because USC switched to a zone in the second half. Give credit where credit is due.

Ummm, no. USC played a TON of zone in the first half. And SMU shredded it. My friend and I, along with all of the other people in our section were asking why USC would ever go to a zone it was getting shredded so badly.

Here is what happened:

1st half: USC plays zone. SMU gets the ball to the middle and whips two or three passes around. USC starts moving and losing track of the ball and SMU gets just about whatever shot it wants. Open three? sure. Driving lane? Yup. 15 footer? Got those too. They didn't hit all of these shots, but they were all there, all the time. SMU scored 38 first half points and it should have been more as they missed a ton of open shots. Even so, they were on pace for 70+ points and a lot of that was due to the zone defense.

2nd half: USC plays zone. SMU walks the ball up. They throw the ball around the three point line for 18-22 seconds. (I once counted SIX possessions in a row where this occured) With 8 to 12 seconds left on the shot clock they get into their offense and most of the time still didn't get the ball in the middle. (note: they didn't even try, this wasn't a case of USC changing their zone, it was a case of SMU changing philosophy.) SMU scored 27 points in the second half. At least 8 of those points came on heaves at the end of the shot clock. (2 desperation 3's and a fade away 15 footer with under 2 on the clock)

I give credit where credit is due. USC has a ton of heart and showed it. But SMU simply lost that game. They deserved that loss and the coach and coaching staff should have serious questions asked about it after their total lack of adjustments. I am not a fan of USC or SMU. I didn't give a crap who won that game. I'm telling you as someone who saw it live, SMU choked and choked hard.

[TroyF]

I gave my SMU/USC thought above, here are my thoughts on the other games I saw in Tulsa today:

1 - Kansas vs UC Davis. - Um, that score was every bit earned. Kansas destroyed them in every facet of the game. Kansas toyed with them. So ridiculously impressive. (and it pains me to say it, as an OK State fan, I do not like Kansas)

A UC Davis G had one of the dumber T's I've ever seen. He challenges the call on the court. A TV timeout is called and he starts talking to the ref. The ref shows him why he received the foul that was called on him. The player and the ref start walking back toward the huddle when the player says something. BOOM. Instant T. The ref tried to work with you kid. At the time this happened, Kansas was up 2. They went on something like a 20-2 run after the T. Just stupid. UC Davis wasn't winning the game anyway, but this guy did them no favors.

2 - Baylor vs. New Mexico State. Baylor is an uberly athletic team without a brain. USC and Baylor is going to be a fun game on Sunday, but I don't think either team has the chops to go even a game beyond this one.

3 - Michigan State vs. Miami. Miami walks out full of swagger and confidence. They play lights out for about 8 1/2 minutes. Michigan State responds and punches them in the mouth. Miami starts crying and never stops. It was painful. I expected them to come out in the second half and be more aggressive again, instead they looked like they'd rather be back in Miami.

At the end of the game they started pressing the Michigan State guards and forced a ton of turnovers. I mention this because the Kansas backcourt is likely going to carve up Michigan State in a very, very, very brutal way on Sunday.

[mauchow]

Need Happ out there if we want to win. No sense in keeping him out too long in a game like this. He can still play the whole game with three fouls if need be.

[mauchow]

Maybe they don't need Happ out there but the offense is definitely brutal without some semblance of an inside game... It will hurt us at some point but if they play as good as they are defensively it isn't as important.

[INDalltheway]

Curious what Arles thinks of the Arizona/SMC line opening at only -2.5 in favor of Arizona. The number has pushed all the way up to -4.5 last I checked, but I found that very interesting that Vegas loves SMC as much as they do.

[mauchow]

Originally Posted by INDalltheway

Curious what Arles thinks of the Arizona/SMC line opening at only -2.5 in favor of Arizona. The number has pushed all the way up to -4.5 last I checked, but I found that very interesting that Vegas loves SMC as much as they do.

SMC was very underseeded based on vegas perception and analytics. Arizona based on analytics were only slightly overseeded.. but I think Arizona will will be more than the spread even as a believer in the ratings put forth by Vegas/Kenpom/Sagarin.

[B & B]

Sheep to the slaughter on Zona IMO

Vegas serves up a meatball spread to attract the flies.

I think this game is a real coin flip, you give me +190 on a coin flip then I bet it every time. Win or lose.

[mauchow]

Jeez, Koenig is not a guy who fouls and obviously being our best player having him AND Happ on the bench.... Now it may start turning ugly. Gotta get Happ in and then roll the dice soon on Koenig. Won't win without him.

[BishopMVP]

Originally Posted by mauchow

SMC was very underseeded based on vegas perception and analytics. Arizona based on analytics were only slightly overseeded.. but I think Arizona will will be more than the spread even as a believer in the ratings put forth by Vegas/Kenpom/Sagarin.

I was surprised how much the analytics disliked Arizona. Would be interested to see if those numbers were much different after Trier came back.

[wustin]

I had Duke as my favorite to make it to the final four and win the tournament. I'm 150% confident they're going to win it all now.

[mauchow]

Originally Posted by wustin

I had Duke as my favorite to make it to the final four and win the tournament. I'm 150% confident they're going to win it all now.

Wisconsin winning increased Duke's odds no doubt.

[Arles]

Originally Posted by INDalltheway

Curious what Arles thinks of the Arizona/SMC line opening at only -2.5 in favor of Arizona. The number has pushed all the way up to -4.5 last I checked, but I found that very interesting that Vegas loves SMC as much as they do.

I think St. Mary's is a good team - I just didn't think they should be rated 6 spots ahead of Arizona in the KenPom ratings. The fact that they are a 4-4.5 favorite seems about right. It's a game either team can win, but Vegas set the line a little low to start.

[mauchow]

Northwestern was down 20 and according to 538 had a less than 1% chance to come back and win.....Now it's a 5 pt game and 5 minutes left and the crowd is extremely rowdy after a bogus call that resulted in a Technical.... since then, all Northwestern. Weeeee.

[Groundhog]

Yeah, I turned on the TV right when this run started, pretty impressive.