Bracketology - Let's Do This

[ESPNjacket]

This Zaga squad is the best college team I’ve seen in over 2 decades. If they have a cold shooting night they can be beat though, but damn they’re fun to watch if you’re a cbb fan.

Off the top of my head, '09 UNC, '12 Kentucky, '18 Villanova are in the conversation.

 

[GTbball2016]

They never take a bad shot. But it also appears that getting good shots is really easy. Creighton is a good team and they are simply overmatched.

Creighton hasn’t been good for a few months though. Their shooting has tanked.

 

[slugboy]

Off the top of my head, '09 UNC, '12 Kentucky, '18 Villanova are in the conversation.

Stacy Augmon 1990 UNLV team?

 

[RamblinRed]

They are so good offensively.
They have been held below 85 pts just 4 times all season. 82-71 in a win at BYU, 78-55 against St. Mary's in the WCC Tourney,
76-58 at Pacific and 73-59 at St. Mary's.
Heck ,they scored 98 @ UVA back in December. 12 games of 90 or more.
515 assists on 950 made baskets. 55% FG. Good 3-pt shooting team (34th nationally in 3FG%), but doesn't really rely on threes to score - not in the top 50 nationally in threes taken or made.

Only once have the won by less than 10 pts - 87-82 against W VA in their third game of the season.

Just a great offensive team. Just fun to watch.

The most amazing thing to me is that they score a ton of points but they are not a run and gun shoot lots of threes type team. They are actually methodical in their offense, but they are so good at making the right pass.
Heck, they've been sort of loose with the ball today and they still have a 20+ point win.

They can be beaten, any team can - there is a reason no team has gone undefeated since 1976 but it sort of feels like it could take a Nova 85 type effort to beat them. Or they just have to have a really bad game offensively, and every step closer they get, the more the pressure to stay undefeated becomes for them.

 

[orientalnc]

Apparently you guys have forgotten about UCLA.

 

[ESPNjacket]

Stacy Augmon 1990 UNLV team?

That's not the last 20 years. College basketball was better back then. The top players stayed 3-4 years.

 

[orientalnc]

Those two plus Georgetown.

LUC is a Jesuit school.

 

[Techster]

Gonzaga is SO good. Now you add Kessler and the #1 recruit Chet Holmgren next season?! I mean, how do you defend against that?

 

[RamblinRed]

Gonzaga is SO good. Now you add Kessler and the #1 recruit Chet Holmgren next season?! I mean, how do you defend against that?

They also got a commit from Top 5 guard Hunter Sallis (the top rated guard that will go to college next season) in the 2021 class this past week. They also have a top 60 big man signee from WA in the incoming class.

 

[MtnWasp]

That's not the last 20 years. College basketball was better back then. The top players stayed 3-4 years.

Better at the tippy top, but highly debatable whether it is better overall. The AAU industry is producing/developing a larger volume of college ready players than decades ago. I think there is far more depth of quality basketball teams (and coaches) than there was 20 years ago.

 

[Milwaukee]

Better at the tippy top, but highly debatable whether it is better overall. The AAU industry is producing/developing a larger volume of college ready players than decades ago. I think there is far more depth of quality basketball teams (and coaches) than there was 20 years ago.

AAU sucks and is ruining basketball.

 

[ESPNjacket]

Better at the tippy top, but highly debatable whether it is better overall. The AAU industry is producing/developing a larger volume of college ready players than decades ago. I think there is far more depth of quality basketball teams (and coaches) than there was 20 years ago.

That is the effect of lopping off the top. It is like taking the all-star team out of the NBA. There would be more parity.

 

[GT_EE78]

This Zaga squad is the best college team I’ve seen in over 2 decades. If they have a cold shooting night they can be beat though, but damn they’re fun to watch if you’re a cbb fan.

lots of good teams over two decades.
If they do win it all,maybe a good subject for a later offseason thread

 

[MtnWasp]

That is the effect of lopping off the top. It is like taking the all-star team out of the NBA. There would be more parity.

How many programs would you say are effected by the one and done phenomenon?

 

[Milwaukee]

They need to stack these tourney games better, no reason to be waiting an hour between games.

 

[ESPNjacket]

How many programs would you say are effected by the one and done phenomenon?

The entire Power 5. If Anthony Davis or Zion Williamson stay 3 or 4 years it drastically changes who goes to Kentucky/Duke going forward and those players who don't go there end up on other P5 rosters. The Cremins method (essentially getting one or two really big recruits per year) can't work in this environment, as one example.

The roster churn changes the quality of depth in the P5 leagues. It also creates top talent teams that aren't as good since they are mostly freshmen.

The difference in top to bottom quality of the '80s ACC/ Big Ten/Big East compared to now shows the result.

 

[MtnWasp]

So, what if Zion Williamson stayed at Duke 3 years? That just turns college ball into NBA-lite, where we have the dominant player acquisition model of winning. Get the Next Michael Jordan and play an iso game and hand the ball to him at crucial times of the game. The NBA has largely been spinning that model (with maybe the exception of San Antonio) ever since Jordan.

While we can define "quality of play" as synonymous with dominant talent, that is not the only definition. By pruning the college ranks of dominant players, the game is about coaching excellence. Maybe not your thing and certainly different, but there is a market for it.

 

[orientalnc]

The entire Power 5. If Anthony Davis or Zion Williamson stay 3 or 4 years it drastically changes who goes to Kentucky/Duke going forward and those players who don't go there end up on other P5 rosters. The Cremins method (essentially getting one or two really big recruits per year) can't work in this environment, as one example.

The roster churn changes the quality of depth in the P5 leagues. It also creates top talent teams that aren't as good since they are mostly freshmen.

The difference in top to bottom quality of the '80s ACC/ Big Ten/Big East compared to now shows the result.

Just thinking about the coaches in those three conferences in the 80s is a real trip down memory lane.

 

[ESPNjacket]

So, what if Zion Williamson stayed at Duke 3 years? That just turns college ball into NBA-lite, where we have the dominant player acquisition model of winning. Get the Next Michael Jordan and play an iso game and hand the ball to him at crucial times of the game. The NBA has largely been spinning that model (with maybe the exception of San Antonio) ever since Jordan.

While we can define "quality of play" as synonymous with dominant talent, that is not the only definition. By pruning the college ranks of dominant players, the game is about coaching excellence. Maybe not your thing and certainly different, but there is a market for it.

Leave out the NBA stuff and continue the thought. Better players staying longer, getting more experience, and playing together for more than one year leads to better top teams. The point I was making before is that those slots being occupied leads to other top players being spread out among more power conference teams. Combine those two things and the top conferences are filled with a greater quantity of more experienced players, while having less slots to fill with new top players.

I am not making an argument for how I think it should be or anything like that. I think having better players stay longer not only led to better quality basketball because of more man-years from those good players, it also spread the talent among P5 conference teams and those players played together for more than one year so they played better together.

 

[Milwaukee]

FSU Mich is Offensive basketball diarrhea like the games yesterday so far .