March Madness thread

[That_Don_Guy]

@Lamar_Mundane

The committee used to take into account how you were playing going into the tournament (last 10 games) but they aren’t allowed to consider that anymore.

Where did you hear this?

NCAA Principles and Procedures for Establishing the Bracket:

The committee will create a “seed list” (i.e. rank of the teams in “true seeds” 1 through 68) which reflects the relative qualitative assessment of the field in descending order.

[Human_Action]

@aceplace57

I hope Kentucky can keep their freshmen for another year. That team could be unstoppable next season. Inexperience and nerves got the better of them in the final.

It would be a mistake to jump to the NBA now. They all need more experience in pressure situations.

@Marley23

Come on. You all know what Kentucky’s business model is. But in any case it was a really good game and a fitting end to a crazy tournament.

It’s not unprecedented, remember that Terrence Jones and Doron Lamb, NBA players right now (and Jones a starter), returned for their sophomore seasons. Alex Poythress and Willie Cauley-Stein did the same last year. Kentucky won’t keep their whole starting five, but two to three of the freshmen coming back isn’t improbable.

[etv78]

Don-Your cite doesn’t address his point. He’s correct BTW. About the Harrisons: Are they viable "3"s?

[crypto]

@Lamar_Mundane

I only looked at the top 5. There may be a lot more that have it correct. It’s not that amazing when you realize there’s something like 8 million people entered.

True enough.

@aceplace57

I hope Kentucky can keep their freshmen for another year. That team could be unstoppable next season. Inexperience and nerves got the better of them in the final.

It would be a mistake to jump to the NBA now. They all need more experience in pressure situations.

Don’t bet on it. Everyone said the same thing about Michigan and their “Fab 5”. They made it to the finals twice, but never won the tourney.

Oh, and I would be shocked if any of these kids come back. Everyone views these kids as one and done. Unless someone is told they are not going in the first round, they are going to take the money and run. And they should.

In any event, Kentucky will most likely be reloaded next year. From what I understand, their incoming freshmen class is excellent again, another class of 1 and done players.

[BigAppleBucky]

@BobLibDem

What a surprise, Duke gets to play its first two games in its home state again. My final matchup will be a repeat of the Big Ten tourney- Michigan State routs Michigan in the NCAA finals.

My rooting interest, Wisconsin, got to play in its home state for the second time ever this year, and a big deal was made of it.

Duke probably has played in North Carolina, on average, every other year they’ve been in the tournament.

[Lamar_Mundane]

@That_Don_Guy

Where did you hear this?

NCAA Principles and Procedures for Establishing the Bracket:

This is from a guy who participated in the sportswriters mock seeding meeting before the tournament. It is run by the selection committee to show sportswriters how it is done.

• No matter what you hear from the talking heads on TV, how a team fared over its last 10 games is no longer a factor the committee must consider in splitting hairs between teams while building the at-large field or seeding the brackets. Hot teams and cold teams might matter to an individual member, but not to the committee as a whole.

[Marley23]

The story says the committee isn’t required to consider the team’s performance in its last 10 games. You said earlier that they were not allowed to consider that performance. That’s an important difference.

[Lamar_Mundane]

@Marley23

The story says the committee isn’t required to consider the team’s performance in its last 10 games. You said earlier that they were not allowed to consider that performance. That’s an important difference.

A poor choice of words on my part. I meant that it used to be an official part of the consideration, but that was dropped as a criteria several years ago. Here’s a part of an interview with the head of the selection committee addressing this very situation.

Q. Refresh my memory on whether there’s any weight at all given to a team’s finishing run, last X number of games, how they do down the stretch.

RON WELLMAN: No. It used to be I think the last 10 games of the season were considered as a factor. That is no longer. When was that, five or six years ago, that that was eliminated as a factor to be considered.

Q. Colorado appears to present the classic injury situation. They lost their best player Spencer Dinwiddie about a month ago. Historically the committee looks at what it has going forward from the point of that injury on. Specifically I’m wondering whether the committee has any way of actually assigning an RPI to that team post injury; in other words, how it would stack up in the RPI without that player?

RON WELLMAN: No, we have not factored that in in terms of the RPI. It is a factor that is considered when we receive the monitors’ reports about the individual conferences. In fact, we just did a conference where we went into some depth about the injuries of those teams within that conference. So it is certainly considered to varying degrees by the individual members of the committee.

Some members of the committee probably consider it very strongly and other members less so. It is a subjective factor that the committee members do take into consideration, like I said, to varying degrees.

Some individuals might have taken it into account, or maybe not. It wasn’t a part of the official discussion among the committee members, though.

[etv78]

@Marley23

The story says the committee isn’t required to consider the team’s performance in its last 10 games. You said earlier that they were not allowed to consider that performance. That’s an important difference.

Excellent point, which I also missed.

[KittenKat]

Is this the thread for declaring Storrs the basketball capital of the universe?

Congrats to the UConn women for knocking off Notre Dame (79-58) and achieving a perfect 40-0 season.

UConn is now the only Division 1 team to win the men’s & women’s national titles not just once, but twice. Woo Hoo Huskies!

[Snowboarder_Bo]

@KittenKat

Is this the thread for declaring Storrs the basketball capital of the universe?

Apparently it is, yes. Holy crap! Go UConn! A 40-0 season is damned incredible, but for both teams to have won the championship is just fan-fucking-tastic!

[IvoryTowerDenizen]

@Snowboarder_Bo

Apparently it is, yes. Holy crap! Go UConn! A 40-0 season is damned incredible, but for both teams to have won the championship is just fan-fucking-tastic!

And it’s the second it’s happened!

[Human_Action]

This can’t be good for women’s basketball, can it? The sport is basically non-competitive.

[That_Don_Guy]

@IvoryTowerDenizen

And it’s the second it’s happened!

Not only that, but it’s the second time UConn won every game by double figures (the closest anyone got was Baylor with 11).

@Human_Action

This can’t be good for women’s basketball, can it? The sport is basically non-competitive.

This year, it was non-competitive. Next year may be a different story.

Parity past a handful of teams has always been a problem with women’s basketball. In the 1990s, you could pretty much name the Final Four in October. (Of course, you have to play out the season - Stanford’s women became the only #1 seed so far to lose to a #16, but that was because its two best players were injured and didn’t play) - but the gap between the championship-caliber teams and the others tended to be wide.) For some reason, there just aren’t enough “really good” women’s basketball players to spread around, and the best ones are going to be headed to places like UConn, Tennessee, and Stanford. (The last of those has another advantage; if you’re not WNBA material, you still have “bachelor’s degree from Stanford” on your resume.)