The Bulgarian Brothers – A College Hoops 2K8 & NBA 2K20 Dynasty

[studbucket]

The Selection Show airs in just a few hours and all conference tournaments have been wrapped up. Let’s take a look at how the NEC, Atlantic Sun, and major conference tournaments turned out.

Northeast Conference
It was a great tournament for 7^th seeded Monmouth, who took out the 2^nd and 3^rd seeded teams on their way to the finals, where they met the buzzsaw that is post-season St. Francis. The final turned into an exhibition for and celebration of Muhamed Payne, who scored 45 points in his final game at DeGol Arena for the Red Flash.

Atlantic Sun Conference
Oggy has taken the Atlantic Sun by storm, winning his very first conference tournament and doing so emphatically. It was a disappointing loss for the Jacksonville Dolphins, who were 1 game away from making their first NCAA tournament since 1986, and instead will finish the season with only 7 losses…yet one of those losses will probably keep them out of the NCAA tournament, though at RPI 58, they are on the Bubble Watch and may make it in as one of the at-large bids, which would be amazing for them.

Major Conferences
ACC – #6 Maryland Terrapins
After losing by 44 to Duke in the regular season, Maryland got revenge in Charlotte, with a comfortable 108-82 win. The champs got to the free throw line an astounding 50 times as Duke had 2 players foul out and 4 players with four fouls. PG Brant Toole was 13-13 from the charity stripe.

Big East – #19 Louisville Cardinals
The Cardinals beat #15 Villanova by 9 in the final game and #16 UConn by 1 point in the semi-finals to win a loaded tournament that also included #9 Georgetown, #18 Syracuse, and #22 Cincinnati.

Big 10 – #23 Wisconsin Badgers
After a scare vs Purdue in round 1, Wisconsin coasted past #7 Illinois and #21 Michigan State en route to the title. Notable in this tournament was MSU’s run, as the Spartans beat Northwestern 111-40 and then beat #4 Ohio State by 5.

Big 12 – #11 Kansas Jayhawks
The demise of the Jayhawks was prematurely reported as the perennial powerhouse beats Texas Tech in the final, easily dispatching Iowa State and Kansas State along the way. #10 Texas lost their first game to Kansas State.

Pac 10 – UCLA Bruins
It’s been a volatile season for the Bruins, but their talent shined in the Pac 10 tourney, especially Stewart Mobley as the junior PF scored 28 points per game. UCLA beat cross-town rivals, #5 USC in their 2^nd game and also beat Arizona and Arizona State before defeating Cal in the final.

SEC – #2 Florida Gators
After Ole Miss shocked the world and handed #1 Tennessee their 3^rd loss of the season in the 2^nd round, the door was wide open for the Gators, who beat South Carolina, #24 Alabama, and #8 Mississippi State to get the automatic bid.

[marshdaddy]

Congrats on a pair of huge wins! What a night from Payne, thanks excited to see what he does in the tourney

[studbucket]

Quote: Originally Posted by marshdaddy

Congrats on a pair of huge wins! What a night from Payne, thanks excited to see what he does in the tourney

Thanks! I am excited too. Post coming soon on the brothers' first round matchup.

[studbucket]

Anticipation has been building and fans have their pencils ready. What will the matchups be?

After winning the SEC tournament, Florida deservedly gets the top overall seed. They are joined by fellow #1 seeds Tennessee, Maryland, and Duke. It’s an all-SEC and ACC top of the brackets. Maryland didn’t make the tournament last year, so grabbing a #1 seed is a huge turnaround for the Terrapins. This is the 2^nd straight 1 seed for Tennessee.

USC, the #8 team in the country will be very disappointed to be a 4 seed, but maybe this is the motivation they need to make it to their 2^nd straight Final Four. Their cross-town mercurial rivals, UCLA, ended up as a very dangerous 8^th seed. Led by Stewart Mobley, one of the NBA draft’s top prospects, they are on a lot of radars to possibly upset Tennessee in round 2. On the other hand, Louisville was gifted a 2^nd seed despite being 23-10.

Kentucky vs Notre Dame makes a very interesting 7v10 first round match matchup in the South bracket. Kentucky is a better team, but Notre Dame has reigning National Player of the Year, and likely favorite for this year’s award, Sidney Dunnington. In the Midwest bracket, Jacksonville ended up with an 11 seed despite losing the Atlantic Sun championship game. They play 6^th seeded Alabama in a game that’s a big deal for the Atlantic Sun conference.




For the Dragomirov brothers, both ended up with 13 seeds. Oggy faces off against the aforementioned USC Trojans. USC was 23-7 and the best regular season Pac-10 team. Their starting lineup is all juniors and seniors and they are returning from their run to the national title game last year. Their dominant frontcourt will be very hard for Scott, Baynes, and Pocius to handle:

• 6’8” SF Bryan Wade (13.8 ppg, 7.4 rpg)
• 6’9” PF Brandon Wilcox (16.9 ppg, 6.8 rpg)
• 7’1” C Raynell Ere (15.6 ppg, 4.1 rpg)

Dinko and St. Francis end up playing perennial New England powerhouse UConn. This is a more favorable matchup than what Oggy got. UConn was 23-10 in the regular season, finishing 3^rd in a very tough and competitive Big East. The Huskies start two freshman at the 3 and 5 spots, but are led by senior SG Darryl Sparrow. The NBA hopeful is extremely smart and is scoring 23.8 points per game. He also has a wealth of shooters around him to knock down shots, though there isn’t much height on the Huskies. If Dinko wants to win this game, he’s going to need to play great perimeter defense, get every rebound possible, and be efficient on offense.

An absolutely astounding 12 teams from the Big East made the tournament, a full 18.5% of the tourney field is from that conference. Last year the top conferences only sent 7 teams to the Big Dance, so this is a remarkable achievement.

Of the top NBA prospects, there are several who won’t be playing in March Madness, which is likely a blow to their stock.

• Archie Holbrook, PF, Clemson – The 21^st ranked prospect (3^rd ranked PF) will not be going to the postseason this year, despite making the Final Four last year. The 14-15 Tigers were not good this season, but Holbrook scored 17 points per game and added 8 rebounds and over 2 blocks. As an undersized PF who can’t shoot, his NBA future is unclear.
• Freiedrich Diarra, SF/SG, Oklahoma State – The 6’6” wing is a solid shooter and a great dunker, but national audiences won’t get to see that this year. The Cowboys just missed out on the tournament as one of the teams on the wrong side of the bubble. He’ll bring his 15 points, 5 rebounds, and 3 assists per game to the NIT, where he faces Long Beach State in round 1.
• Milos Jeffers, SG/PG, Davidson – Jeffers is a divisive prospect. Is he a one-trick pony who only succeeded because he played in the Southern conference, or is he a top talent that is going to be drafted far lower than he should? Unfortunately for him, he’s not in the post-season this year and so the next time we’ll see him is in the pre-draft workouts. He averaged 26.5 ppg on 40% from three.
• Regis Hobbs, SG, Arizona – The Wildcats were disappointingly bad this year, which hurts Hobbs’ draft stock, though it’s also hurt by his shooting 34% from three.
• Louis Zaharias, SF, Stanford – The 7-footer was the best player on a mediocre Stanford team. His size is fantastic, but his rebounding and value in the NBA is in question.

[studbucket]

Oggy had been here before, but he was no less nervous than the first time. He was playing with house money having exceeded all expectations in his first season at Stetson, quieting many of the doubters who thought he was crazy to leave Northern Colorado in what was seen as a lateral move, especially after he had brought in a solid recruiting class to Greeley.

USC presents a very tough matchup for the Hatters, though Oggy knew it was no more difficult than his matchup against Kansas two years ago. That team started three first round draft picks and was far more than he could handle. This USC team is good and experienced, but don’t have the raw talent of that Jayhawks teams. Additionally, this year’s Hatters team had more talent than that Northern Colorado team, though he did miss coaching Delvon Jahnke and Donovin Mascoll.

This was a game that many pundits were picking as a first round lock, and Oggy could understand why. In order to win, he was going to need to find open looks, take good shots, and slow the game down. This is much easier said than done.

Right after the game tipped off at McKale Memorial Center in Tucson, Jerimie Scott got things started with a dunk and the Hatters grabbed an early 7-3 lead. That was about the extent of the excitement the fans would get that evening, as Oggy had his team slow down the game greatly. In general, Stetson wouldn’t start their offense until there was 10 seconds left on the shot clock: they would pass the ball to Brendon Pocius, who would dribble near the time line for 15-20 seconds, and then would set up a drive or pass to a big man. Some of the crowd began booing this approach, but Oggy knew this was coming and told his team to expect it.

Stetson’s approach to limited USC’s possession was very effective. With 3:25 left in the half, the score was only 16-16 and Stetson even had a possession drain 90 seconds off the clock thanks to some USC fouls. The game went 2.5 minutes without another basket, before there was a “flurry” of 8 points in the final minute. It was a 21-18 USC lead and halftime, and this was dreary, dire basketball. It was slow, full of bad shots and turnovers. Atila Kann led all shooters with 8 points for Stetson.

To start the second half, Atila Kann showed up in a big way for the Hatters, nailed a couple threes and giving Stetson a 24-23 lead. However, it was short lived and USC’s talent began to show up and stretched the lead to 5.

Scoring slowed down for several minutes and with 4 minutes left, USC was leading 35-31. Rex Fischer made his first three of the game to cut the lead to 35-34 and Andy Enfield called a timeout for the Trojans. They came out of the timeout more composed and extended the game to what could be a commanding 43-36 with less than two minutes left.

However, Stetson gave USC one last scare as two straight baskets cut the game to 43-40 and the neutrals began hoping for a buzzer beater and upset, but USC held on to win the game, 45-40.

Reactions to the game were split, with some feeling like Stetson played awful basketball and they hope that this isn’t a template for other teams going forward, while others were more complimentary of the team’s discipline and approach.

Stetson largely executed their gameplan well, though they didn’t manage to get to the free throw line a single time during the game. Atila Kann had 19 points, shooting 5-9 from three, but his backcourt partner Rex Fischer shot 1-6 from deep. If any of those shots go in, this may be a different game.

For USC, they were led by Bryan Wade with 13 points and starting PG Devonne Shakur had 6 steals.

[studbucket]

Ha, I found a bug in 2K8. The image they imported for SFU has a spelling error. It says "univeristy" instead of "university".

[RolePlayer]

No shame in losing to USC by only five. Oggy has to be proud of the season he had after so many doubted Stetson. It’ll be tough to replace Kahn who gave it all in his final game.

I’m curious why the score was so low though. Were both teams using up the shot clock, did you change the minutes? Because your field goal percentage is decent and not a ton of turnovers.

[studbucket]

Quote: Originally Posted by RolePlayer

No shame in losing to USC by only five. Oggy has to be proud of the season he had after so many doubted Stetson. It’ll be tough to replace Kahn who gave it all in his final game. I’m curious why the score was so low though. Were both teams using up the shot clock, did you change the minutes? Because your field goal percentage is decent and not a ton of turnovers.

Primarily because both teams used up all the shot clock. Oggy literally had his team dribble the ball by the timeline for 20 seconds, then pass it to Brendon Pocius to instigate the offense with 10 seconds left on the shot clock.

With Pocius driving or getting the ball to Scott, they'd often get fouled or get an offensive rebound and reset the shot clock. So Stetson would have 60-90 second possessions on a somewhat regular basis.

Then Stetson played good defense, made USC use up the shot clock, and wasn't afraid to foul instead of giving USC a good look.

So the shooting % was good, but the number of possessions was probably 60% of what you'd see in a normal game.

Minutes were the same (I play with 12 minute halves).