Bracket Challenge

[lauraee]

Aubie on the ropes

 

[lauraee]

Auburn out Fu secheats

 

[eetech]

SEC 1/6 in the tournament. They were favored in ALL of these games.

The only first round game they’re not favored in is an 8/9 game.

Unfreakingbelievable. The SEC should be disallowed any teams in the tourney for the next 5 years.

 

[GT33]

SEC 1/6 in the tournament. They were favored in ALL of these games.

The only first round game they’re not favored in is an 8/9 game.

Unfreakingbelievable. The SEC should be disallowed any teams in the tourney for the next 5 years.

Does the SEC ever catch or exceed the number of wins the 4 team ACC contingent has in this tournament? Right now I guess it's still possible.

 

[awbuzz]

Yale and Colorado them both today.

 

[awbuzz]

Need Charleston to come through tonight.

 

[GTJackets]

It's not like all of the auto bid teams are having some great seasons and do anything particularly noteworthy to deserve a spot

For instance, Stetson was 19-13 overall and played 25 Q4 games, and lost 8 of them. They are in the tournament because they beat Queens (NET 268), Jacksonville (NET 275) and Austin Peay (NET 221)

Longwood was 18-13 this year. They were 6 -10 in their conference. They won by beating Winthrop (NET 181), Highpoint (NET 110), UNC Ashville (NET 163).

Wagner had a losing record this year overall and in conference. They won by beating Sacred Heart (NET 286), Central Connecticut (249), and Merrimack (NET 213)

Grambling was 18-14. They were 0-8 in quadrants 1 through 3. They were 18-6 in Q4 games. They won by beating 314, 308, and 278.

The 15 seeds aren't a whole lot better either.

And they aren't just keeping our power conference teams. Teams like Indiana State are hurt by that as well.

Some would say that winning their conference tournament was noteworthy and earned them a spot. I would say let's look at the SEC teams and their performance in the big dance so far when determining who hurt Indiana State more than a lower-tier conference champion. They could have easily left one of them out for Ind St. Or maybe Indiana State was the one the hurt Indiana State the most by coming up short in their conference tourney.

I just think it's okay to say the committee screwed up again. I just don't think it was by letting in lower-tier teams, but by over-valuing high-major teams that finished middle of the pack in their conference. Again, I think it's the beauty of the 64-team tournament. Give them their shot. Get to enjoy them pulling off a few upsets along the way. And it all settles out because we're talking about teams none of which had a realistic shot at winning it all anyway.

But this is of course just my opinion.

 

[awbuzz]

Need Charleston to come through tonight.

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like Nebraska will be up to the task against Texas A&M.

 

[MtnWasp]

Yale over Auburn:

 

[bigrabbit]

Boola boola

 

[Techster]

 

[CEB]

They might wish they were the Mountain West…

 

[kg01]

Man, I'm loving watching them crash 'n burn. Even though my bracket probably look like shredded cheese rn.

 

[ESPNjacket]

 

[cpf2001]

If it’s so hard being in a power conference maybe some of the teams should move down a league or three to take advantage of how unfair it is. I’ll be waiting over here…

 

[Randy Carson]

Years - and I do mean years - ago, it occurred to me that the SEC would eventually catch up with the ACC in basketball.

Why? I'm glad you asked.

Because football is the revenue sport, and the best basketball coaches will be hired by the schools with the money to pay them.

 

[MWBATL]

The debate over whether to limit the “weaker” teams in with auto-bids is downright un-American. America is the land of freedom and equal opportunity. Our founding principles are about allowing anyone who “gets the job done” to get rewarded and move forward. We should always have a completely open tournament. Open to all teams. We have the conference tournaments as early rounds of the Big Dance itself, for the mid-majors and below. Tell those elites like Sankey and SEC to stuff it.

 

[Backstreetbuzz]

The debate over whether to limit the “weaker” teams in with auto-bids is downright un-American. America is the land of freedom and equal opportunity. Our founding principles are about allowing anyone who “gets the job done” to get rewarded and move forward. We should always have a completely open tournament. Open to all teams. We have the conference tournaments as early rounds of the Big Dance itself, for the mid-majors and below. Tell those elites like Sankey and SEC to stuff it.

I would prefer 96 teams with an extra day (33/96, 34/95, etc) bringing the field to 64. This would pretty much eliminate the small conference, weak schedule problem and allowing truly deserving teams to be in the dance. GT must improve for it to matter, but there could come a day when a 21-10, 12-8, 30 RPI GT team gets completely left out so that St. Peter’s gets in.

 

[jeffgt14]

The small conferences getting the auto-bid also provides extra value to the regular season as well. 1-3 seeds do and should have a much easier 1st round matchup. Regular season becomes a lot more pointless if you're rewarded with a 2 seed only to face Seton Hall in the 1st round.

 

[ESPNjacket]

I would prefer 96 teams with an extra day (33/96, 34/95, etc) bringing the field to 64. This would pretty much eliminate the small conference, weak schedule problem and allowing truly deserving teams to be in the dance. GT must improve for it to matter, but there could come a day when a 21-10, 12-8, 30 RPI GT team gets completely left out so that St. Peter’s gets in.

Either 80 or 96 make sense to me. I don't like the play in games.

The number of Division I basketball teams was 318 in 2000. It is 362 now.

Oh, and RPI should never be discussed again.