WSU in that game was the biggest bet I've ever made.

And on top of that, I got some guy to lay me 10-1 that at least 2 teams from the CAA or MVC would make the sweet 16...

Coach Williams better start teaching the Tar Heels some D-fence...or it might be a early exit, since im sure most have the heels going all the way.

tru dat...

They want a shoot fest with all those athletes.

Same thing people said the year they beat Illinois. When you have much better players across the board than your opponents, chances are that you'll win more than you'll lose. That's the case with UNC. They have better players than any team in the country top to bottom. It's that simple. They play enough defense. People are acting like they need to slow the game down and beat teams 50-48 if they want to win. That's just not true. Look at the team they won the title with a couple of years ago. Look at the Memphis and Kansas teams that played in the final last year. You have to be able to score the ball to win and they have the best offense in the country and play enough defense to get the job done. For me, the key is not how they play defense throughout the game but how they play it in stretches when it counts the most. There's no way this team is an early exit team.

Memphis and Kansas last year is not the example you want to use. Those two teams had historically outstanding defenses, and they scored enough in March to win. It wasn't the other way around.

It was the inability to play 40 minutes of defense that killed North Carolina the past two seasons. I don't see any improvement defensively this year. If anything they're worse on D. Fortunately for them, there are no great teams this season, so it may not matter, but to brush off their inconsistent D when it cost them championships the last two seasons is ridiculous.

it also helps to have officiating in your favor. Augustine looked at a UNC player funny and it's a foul (and fouls out within the first few minutes) Roger Powell gets the crap beat out of him and no whistle.

but I'll agree. it doesn't matter if you contest every shot if over half of them still go in. Illinois has very little offense.

If I knew in advance which games Ed Hightower was officiating I could pick the winner by who is better at the free throw line and who has better bench depth. Hightower loves attention and will blow the whistle early and often.

i agree no early exit , but , not lock in the final 4 either

So, tough to see St Marys getting in now. Neutral court wins over Providence and San Diego St help as well as the bracket buster win over Utah St. But they didn't show up against Gonzaga last night and have the neutral court loss to bottom of the bubble UTEP. Not sure if the resume is there. Mills might need to pour in 50 in that game they added this week against some crappy Big Sky team to show he's 100% for them to even get serious consideration.

BTW, was pretty funny last night when I was at the bar and they did one of the blind comparisons. Since it was before the Siena game I looked at the comparison and was like, 'oh, that's stupid to compare Siena and Niagara, obviously Siena looks a lot better'. Then they put up the teams and it turned out to be Siena and South Carolina. So I'm willing to reconsider South Carolina but I still have a tough time seeing them be left out with even one win in the SEC tourney.

86 Cincy from the NCAA's. they just got beat in the first round of the Big East by 10 by DePaul (0-18 in big east and 0 for 2009 prior to it)

They had a lot of work to do to get themselves back in consideration but that is just pathetic. They'll have a tough time getting a high seed in the NIT at this point.

Wonder if the bubble will sort itself out like it has the potential to. All of the following are likely to happen:

Minnesota beat Northwestern
Florida beats Arkansas
South Carolina beats Miss State
New Mexico beats Wyoming
Michigan beats Iowa
Penn St beats Indiana

Then you'd just need two minor upsets to occur and your field is pretty clear:
Arizona beats Arizona St
San Diego St beats UNLV

Either of those lose and it opens to door for UNLV or USC to play themselves in. Could be as easy a bubble to figure as you'll ever see. Of course they call this March Madness for a reason, the likely seldom happens.

Cincinnati was already finished after losing to South Florida and Seton Hall to finish the season. Good for DePaul.

Wow. They had historically outstanding defenses? All I can say to that is that you and I see the game completely different.

Bad for Providence. They had a slim chance of getting in if they beat Cincy but beating Depaul will do nothing for them. Now they have to beat Louisville to even have a chance. Big Ten could get 8 of 11 in while the Big East only gets 7 out of 16, so bizarre.

Yeah, you watch 30 minutes of a primetime game every two weeks and feel comfortable making blanket statements about every team in the country, while I try to watch as many games as possible and actually pay some attention to statistics. Very different.

I'm not sure how the hell anyone could think those two teams last year were anything less than great on defense if they'd watched anything more than the title game.

any beat by a bubble team early in a conference tourney should get them in. big east deserves 8.

Cleveland State :eek:

They earned the hell out of that game. The only reason it was close was because Butler got every borderline call from the chickenshit refs.

The conference can't "deserve" anything. If Providence hasn't done enough to get in, they shouldn't get in. It doesn't matter what conference they play in. You don't select a team just because they're from a supposedly great conference and you think that that conference "deserves" a certain amount of bids. The Big East has three great teams, four very good ones and a bunch of mediocre-to-terrible ones. A mediocre team from the Big East doesn't deserve a bid any more than a mediocre team from any other conference.

Looking at it now, if ND manages to beat West Virginia, it looks like they will probably play Lousville or Pitt, and a win against either of them and I think the commitee will give them a strong look, lots of work for the Irish, but if their shooters get hot they always have a chance.

That's some hard hitting analysis.

No surprise there. One team had everything to play for, the other team had nothing to play for. Butler probably moves down from an 8 to a 10 which is actually an easier spot to get to the sweet 16 from. And if they moved from a 7 to a 10 nothing changed but what color jerseys they will wear.