Bracketology - Let's Do This

JDjacket

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PAC-12 has had some friendly matchups but they aren't effing it up like everyone else. Colorado is definitely for real though. They're a very legit threat to reach the F4.
It’s not just the winning though. It’s how they’re winning. Their closest win was UCLA by 6 over MSU
 

jeffgt14

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There's a very real chance that the Sweet 16 is going to be filled with 2 teams from each P6 conference and 4 mid majors. That probably still won't shut up these conference superiority asshats that has ruined college sports going on 13 years now but it would make me feel better for all of 4 minutes.
 

RamblinRed

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No conference has more than 1 team in the Sweet Sixteen at this point and only 4 of the 7 from the P6.

B12 - Baylor
BE - Nova
SEC - ARK
Summit - Oral Roberts
MVC - Loyola-Chicago
ACC - Syracuse
American - Houston

Last spot tonight will be either a second B12 or the first PAC12 team.


Tomorrow should be interesting. We have 2 SEC-B10 matchups, B10-PAC12, PAC12-B12, PAC12-ACC, WCC-B12
PAC12-Southland, and BE-Mid-American
 

RamblinRed

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My rooting tends to be pretty simple.
First comes my 2 alma mater's GT and Penn. Then my home state and my dad's alma mater - WI. After those three I sort of root for ACC teams, or at least don't mind if they win since that means more money for GT - though there is a part of me that doesn't mind if certain ACC teams lose. And then pretty much every underdog, with maybe the exception of Gonzaga.
 

JDjacket

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Cinderella was cross-bred with her mice and now they’re just multiplying.

It definitely shows the challenges of seeding and such during Covid. Obviously committee didn’t watch enough pac 12 after dark I guess.
 

Northeast Stinger

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Only if the sweet 16 matchups aren’t compelling and competitive. Otherwise, lots of upsets is just the buzz the NCAA wants in the first two rounds.
I think it’s all about the buzz this year. They want to sell a good product and they have Frankenstein-ed as many upsets and Cinderella stories as they can.

The more generous assessment is that nobody could have predicted this strange year. Which I buy except for the excessive taking heads takes this year that pushed various narratives about conferences.
 

Deleted member 2897

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Well I will admit I definitely slept on the PAC 12

Once every 10 years they have a decent tournament. Helps when you don’t play a bunch of good teams too.

This year is like the old joke whoever wants to volunteer take a step forward...and everyone takes a step backwards and you’re left alone. The Big Ten absolutely embarrassed themselves. The ACC got terrible seeds but couldn’t pull any upsets. The Big 12 and SEC have had about the usual number of upsets. The Pac12 hasn’t had any silly mistakes. Oregon State is the only Pac12 team who has played a ranked opponent. (3 ACC teams played ranked opponents in round 1 alone. Florida State and Syracuse both played ranked teams in round 2.). 1 of their teams got to skip a round. They’ve only had 3 upset wins.
 
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RamblinRed

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Oregon State recreated the whole Hoosiers scene measuring the baskets. I figured one of the teams playing at Hinkle would do that.

Been such a fun tournament to this point.

Frankly fans need to stop bitching about the ACC seeds. The ACC didn't look very strong this year. At least to my eye test. Who looked like a really good team in the ACC this season? I'm not sure a single team in the ACC looked like a really good team all season.
Now the ACC was affected more by COVID then most conferences and I think that really hurt this year - I believe it was something like 23rd out of 31 conferences in terms of games missed.
As I said before the seeding was released I would have likely put Clemson higher than GT - though not by 2 seeds, they likely would have been on the same seed line for me. The difference in their 2 resumes was that OOC Clemson had wins over AL and Purdue while GT had losses to Mercer and Ga St.

This year was always going to be about who got lucky in terms of COVID and who got unlucky. ACC as a conference was very unlucky. And that included going into the NCAA with 2 teams being seriously impacted by COVID.

Did the ACC get great seeds? no. But did it deserve better seeds? Overall based on its body of work not really.

This year was arguably going to be the hardest year ever for the Committee to seed the Tourney with a greatly reduced number of OOC games that allows you to compare who across conferences. That of course also negatively effects the various metrics.

Based on the 6 metrics that the Committee looks at, GT avg out to a 33.5. So the 8/9 slot was exactly where GT should have been based on the metrics. My hope was the Committee would look at who was playing well at the end of the season and adjust, but true to what they have done for the last decade where they did away with the last 10 games metric and said every game counts the same, we didn't get a bump higher. Of course, GT got unlucky with a draw that put them in the first round against a team that was underseeded. Based on those same metrics Loyola should have been a 6. But in the end i'm not sure how much all that would have mattered missing Moses. That was just a killer.

B10 was quite clearly overrated. That basically came about because of the ACC-B10 challenge. B10 'best' teams beat up on the ACC 'best' teams (who ended up not really even being the ACC's best teams) and that basically stuck the story for the year.

Syracuse and their zone and 3-pt shooting have been something to see these first 2 rounds. It is ironic. If you play in the conference with them and so play against them every year playing against the zone isn't really that big of deal. Like every defense it has weaknesses. But playing it on short notice just seems like it throws teams for loops. Of course their insane shooting is also a huge part of the story. Through 2 games they are taking almost 60% of their shots from three and have hit 50% of them (29-58). Their issue is going to be the game that will come when they don't shoot well from three.

Already 3 double digit seeds and an 8 in to the Sweet Sixteen. Only 3 protected seeds (1-4) made it through this half of the bracket. At least one more double digit seed will make it through (we have an 11-14 game today), and as many as 3 could.
 

Techster

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Buddy Boeheim is going to be one of those players who gets better and better every year and is a complete b@d@ss his senior year. Reminds me a LOT of the type of Duke guys that use to stay all 4 years that every team's fans use to loathe by their 3rd and 4th years...except Buddy isn't annoying. He's just a stone cold assassin.
 

Deleted member 2897

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Oregon State recreated the whole Hoosiers scene measuring the baskets. I figured one of the teams playing at Hinkle would do that.

Been such a fun tournament to this point.

Frankly fans need to stop bitching about the ACC seeds. The ACC didn't look very strong this year. At least to my eye test. Who looked like a really good team in the ACC this season? I'm not sure a single team in the ACC looked like a really good team all season.
Now the ACC was affected more by COVID then most conferences and I think that really hurt this year - I believe it was something like 23rd out of 31 conferences in terms of games missed.
As I said before the seeding was released I would have likely put Clemson higher than GT - though not by 2 seeds, they likely would have been on the same seed line for me. The difference in their 2 resumes was that OOC Clemson had wins over AL and Purdue while GT had losses to Mercer and Ga St.

This year was always going to be about who got lucky in terms of COVID and who got unlucky. ACC as a conference was very unlucky. And that included going into the NCAA with 2 teams being seriously impacted by COVID.

Did the ACC get great seeds? no. But did it deserve better seeds? Overall based on its body of work not really.

This year was arguably going to be the hardest year ever for the Committee to seed the Tourney with a greatly reduced number of OOC games that allows you to compare who across conferences. That of course also negatively effects the various metrics.

Based on the 6 metrics that the Committee looks at, GT avg out to a 33.5. So the 8/9 slot was exactly where GT should have been based on the metrics. My hope was the Committee would look at who was playing well at the end of the season and adjust, but true to what they have done for the last decade where they did away with the last 10 games metric and said every game counts the same, we didn't get a bump higher. Of course, GT got unlucky with a draw that put them in the first round against a team that was underseeded. Based on those same metrics Loyola should have been a 6. But in the end i'm not sure how much all that would have mattered missing Moses. That was just a killer.

B10 was quite clearly overrated. That basically came about because of the ACC-B10 challenge. B10 'best' teams beat up on the ACC 'best' teams (who ended up not really even being the ACC's best teams) and that basically stuck the story for the year.

Syracuse and their zone and 3-pt shooting have been something to see these first 2 rounds. It is ironic. If you play in the conference with them and so play against them every year playing against the zone isn't really that big of deal. Like every defense it has weaknesses. But playing it on short notice just seems like it throws teams for loops. Of course their insane shooting is also a huge part of the story. Through 2 games they are taking almost 60% of their shots from three and have hit 50% of them (29-58). Their issue is going to be the game that will come when they don't shoot well from three.

Already 3 double digit seeds and an 8 in to the Sweet Sixteen. Only 3 protected seeds (1-4) made it through this half of the bracket. At least one more double digit seed will make it through (we have an 11-14 game today), and as many as 3 could.

You're defending the exact argument people have poked holes in. If you believe the ratings systems, the ACC didn't get underrated and get unfair seeds. And that's the exact point. It wasn't too long ago that 9 of the top 13 teams were in the Big Ten in those ratings systems. I don't recall anybody here denying the Big Ten was likely the best conference this year or that the ACC was having a down year.

But here's where the rubber meets the road. Ohio State has 10 losses. They got a #2 seed. Illinois has 7 losses. They got a #1 seed. Wisconsin has 13 losses and they got a #7 seed.

Louisville has 7 losses and didn't even get into the tournament. Florida State has 6 losses and got a #4 seed. The ACC has 8 teams with as many losses as Ohio State or less. Of, if you want to look at win percentage, Ohio State's is 0.6774. The ACC has 7 teams within 0.02 of that or higher.
 
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