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.

I'd like to apologize for never offering you anything to drink while you've sat in my living room and observed how much or how intensely I follow the game. Let's see, I think I've made statements this year about UNC, Duke, Pitt, UConn, Memphis, Oklahoma, and Kansas. Maybe a couple more. Yes, you're right. That's every team in the country. And my wife is going to be pretty upset that I use the DVR to record so many games and clutter it up and don't even watch them. Please don't tell her that I just record and erase and never watch them. Also, if you have any tapes of Memphis' run to the title game from last year, maybe you wouldn't mind sharing them with me since I neglected to watch them before the title game......even though it was probably the most excited I've been about any team's run in a long while, with them being my hometown team and all.

It really isn't.

In fact I'm surprised the WCC didn't have Gonzaga ole' their game against St. Mary's, it's worth a million bucks to the conference (at minimum). The A-10 does it every year.

Yeah, although in Gonzaga's case it could have been the difference between a 5 and a 7 which is very significant.

...and I can see the Big Ten only advancing 1 team to the sweet 16, maybe even 0. Even Michigan State has flaws that a 7-10 seed could exploit.

Committee sometimes does weird things with the lower seeds so if any of the should be 14 seeds (North Dakota St, Stephen F Austin, Binghamton, Portland St) wound up a 15 seed then I'd say Michigan State has flaws that a 15 seed could exploit.

I watched the NDSU game last night. They are pretty darned good and a dangerous 14-15 seed. Any fast team would probably give them a tough time but I think they matchup well with a halfcourt set type team, they can shoot the lights out and play tough defense, they just don't have the athletes of the elite levels.

Yeah, they are my guaranteed upset in the first round. Which means they'll get matched up with a team I really like and I'll talk myself out of it and pick against them just to have them pull the upset.

I think Gonzaga will be higher than a 5.

They are, but Ben Woodside can't play like a bitch like he did for the first 35 minutes of last night's game. The guy averages 23 per, and he was playing like he's Avery Johnson or Earl Watson. Only in the last five minutes did he actually look to score.

agreed, he's gotta come out and light it up, look to score every play.

i think Gonzaga will be very disappointed with their seed. on a blind comparison their resume isn't that strong. 4 of their top 5 wins are against St Mary's and Tennessee, they have a not-so-good loss to Portland State, and their RPI/SOS is much worse than previous years. I'm thinking 6-7 range.

Yeah, but the committee gives a lot of strength to how a team finishes the season. Remember when Syracuse was on the wrong side of the bubble, then made that run in the Big East tourney and ended up with a 5-seed? No one's hotter than Gonzaga now and are there 16 teams that'll get a higher seed? Oklahoma, UNC, pitt, uconn, lville, kansas, mizzou, nova, washington, memphis, michigan state, purdue, duke, wake forest are the only ones I can think of for sure that'll be higher seeded. I think they've got a good shot at a 4.

You are worse than I am.
Except I concentrate on the Big 12.

On which I will make 1 comment on my alma matre.
They played very well against Kansas 1st half.
They were a totally diff. team. It is a tiny ray
of hope in what was otherwise an extremely
dissappointing year.

Hook em.
Please.

Xavier, Illinois, FSU, Clemson, and possibly UCLA, LSU, Arizona State, and Syracuse (all depending on how they do in their respective tournaments) could argue that. Not saying it's right, because I do think they're in the top 16 teams in America, just knowing how the committee treats mid-majors. For example, in 2002, Gonzaga had a resume worthy of a 3 seed and got a 6 (and got bounced in the first round.)

Plus, their last "real" opponent before St. Mary's in the WCC Championship game (Memphis) took them behind the woodshed at home.

4-5 is essentially the same thing. My point was more that as a 4-5 they have a much easier route to the Sweet 16 than being a 6-7 so winning was critical. I could see Syracuse, UCLA, and Florida St all having a decent shot of being put up on the 4 line before Gonzaga.

What could be really interesting is if 3 Big East teams wound up a #1 then only one team could be a 4 or a 5 meaning any other teams that fall into that line would have to be bumped up to a 3 or down to a 6. Could get real confusing if Marquette beat Villanova or Syracuse beat Pittsburgh.

Didn't they change that rule largely because of the Big East and the possibility that it could get 9+ teams into the Tournament?

They've always allowed a contingency for 9+ teams but that would be the highest seeded teams that would be allowed to meet in the same region. So you could have a 2-10 or 4-12 or 3-11 second round Big East matchup if they had 9 teams but never a 1-4 or 1-5.

Looking more closely does anyone actually think that either of the Ohio teams is going to win the A10 tourney in Atlantic City? I could easily see the final being Rhode Island against the Temple/St Joes winner which would mean one less bid for everyone else. Another interesting twist is that if Florida wins over Arkansas they would play Auburn. A second SEC tourney win by Florida would probably lock things up while Auburn would have the opportunity to beat Florida and then Tennessee and likely earn themselves a bid. If Florida beats Arkansas then loses to Auburn who loses to Tennessee you'd have a situation where the committee could put both in or neither. For the sake of the tournament I hope it is neither but its a tough call.

St. Johns scored 10 points in the first half today. Walter Berry just rolled over in his grave.

Well they had to be out partying all night last night to celebrate their first Big East tourney win since 2003.

Of course not. This is the A10 we're talking about here. The favorite, if an at--large lock, stiffs it every time to get another team in. See my post above!

Classic examples- St Joes was UNSTOPPABLE in '04. They "found a way" to lose to Xavier in their first round who was just ok that year. GW was 16-0 in the regular season in '06, only really tested once, yet got waxed by an average Temple team in the first round. Last year Xavier was a beast and still found a way to lose in their 2nd game which set up the A10 to get 3 bids when Temple beat St Joe's in the final (the only way they were getting 3 bids.)

Xavier made the elite 8 in '04 as did St Joe's. Xavier proved they were an excellent team at the end of '04 when they beat St Joes in the A10 tourney...Xavier took out 2 and 3 seeds Texas and Mississippi State and payed a very close game in the regional final against Duke. With what Xavier did in the NCAA tourney in '04 it is hard to argue they didn't just flat out beat St Joe's in the A10 tourney.