When did basketball commentators start talking about “the bigs” when referring to a team’s tall players? I find it grating and wish they would stop.
In the present format, a #1 team’s second opponent will always be #8 or 9. Their third, if they get there, will always be #4, 5, 12, or 13 (#13 La Salle would have been Gonzaga’s).
I always hate it when teams pull off a huge upset and then act all whiny and aggrievedbecause nobody expected them to do what they had previously shown no signs of being capable of doing. STFU and just be happy you won. I hope the Ducks comport themselves better after their win over Wisconsin tonight. And nice job to the Spartans, even though it messed up my bracket!
Dear NCAA Tournament Committee,
Michigan State in the second round? Two years in a row? Have you seen Izzo’s record in the second game of tournament weekends?!? DO YOU HATE US?!?!?
Respectfully,
Univ of VA basketball team
Wichita State got what it wanted but the media makes it sound like Bill Self is the only HC of a major program to decline to a series with a local school from a minor conference.
Sigh. Tough loss for the Ducks but they hung tough and made us all proud. Wisconsin didn’t look like they are going to have much of a chance against Arizona.
Maybe he’s the only one to do so, and then lose to that very school on the biggest stage in college basketball?
I don’t have the records, but am a betting man, and am betting thats not the case.
I was watching the second half of the game today, and it seemed like all the announcers were concerned about was prodding Kansas to accept a series with Wichita State because Wichita State is the current media darlings of college basketball.
I get why Bill Self would not do so in the past. If you are a top recruit in Kansas, would you rather go to play for the Shockers and face teams like Southern Illinois or Evansville, or join the Big 12 and play where the big boys play? Its a huge recruiting advantage, and as we saw today theres nothing to gain by playing a game in the regular season by a second-tier team with a 35 year red-ass to beat you despite being a NCAA MM team only since 10 years ago, and make a case for those recruits.
If Wichita State wants an annual home-away piece of Kansas, they should build their football program, like other Big 12 programs have as well, and apply to be in the Big 12.
I agree a Wichita St v Kansas rivalry would be great for the fans, but it’s not quite as easy as that. Kansas is a major sports school. Wichita State is a basketball only program, and has not invested enough to face Kansas as a regular season rival.
What the respective schools do in other sports should have nothing to do with what they do in basketball (and vice-versa).
I don’t think Wichita State is necessarily interested in an annual home-and-home, but just one game per year. While alternating home courts would be nice, I wonder if he would accept playing in Lawrence every year.
One problem from Kansas’s end might be, how often is Wichita State a “power”? The last thing a team needs is a regularly-scheduled game against a weak team which would drag its RPI down. (Cal learned this lesson about 25 years ago when it suddenly decided to end its 25-or-so-straight-years run playing UC-Davis (which was still in Division II at the time). I think they have played each other once since then.)
Side note: I see that the NCAA got its act together and will move the Women’s Final Four to Friday/Sunday starting in 2017. Maybe now the championship game will get noticed in Sports Illustrated.
The women’s game will never be remotely on a par with the men’s. There is no parity whatsoever- at most there are three women’s teams with a legitimate shot at the title. Upsets in the tourney are rare, you can pretty much pencil in the #1 seeds into the final four every year. The game itself is boring, the players are slower and far less skilled than the men. Unless you have a family member involved or your school is a #1 seed, there’s no reason to watch or for SI to cover it.
Notre Dame helped vindicate my argument tonight. Its clear all Wichita State wanted cared about was a showdown with Kansas, and they got what they wanted. I knew as soon as their players, most of which would be walk ons at Villanova, put on their “Kings of Kansas” tee-shirts they were bound to fail. They put all their energy into beating the Jayhawks and had nothing left for the Irish.
I now wish Kansas would take on the Shockers one time a year. Give me 7 games, Kansas easily beats them in 5 or 6 of those games.
Question: if Kentucky wins the tournament, does the NCAA start considering doing something to prevent more “Universities of One-And-Done”?
For example: for every two “first counters” (players receiving college basketball scholarships for the first time) who get drafted in the next NBA draft, the school loses a scholarship for the season that is two seasons in the future. (It’s not in the next season as then you would have schools not knowing how many scholarships they would have available on National Letter of Intent Day.) For example, if two or three Kentucky true (or grayshirt) freshmen are drafted in 2015, Kentucky loses one scholarship for the 2016-17 season; if four or five are drafted, it loses two.
The NCAA tried something similar once (I want to say around 2000, but I’m not sure) - a school was limited to five “first counters” per season, and eight in any two consecutive seasons. (There is a first counter limit in football; IIRC, it was after Pitt signed something like 80 freshmen to scholarships one year so they could build a team over four years; it might have been the team that won the national championship in 1976.) However, coaches complained that they had no way to fill slots lost by having too many players leave for the NBA, so the NCAA started making exceptions for this, and eventually got rid of the limit.
Kentucky’s 10 rotation players feature 2 juniors (Willie Cauley-Stein, Alex Poythress) and 4 sophomores (Dakari Johnson, Andrew & Aaron Harrison, Marcus Lee); the one-and-done guys (most likely Towns, Booker, and Lyles) are the frosting on a cake of veterans.
What exactly is the problem this is supposed to solve?
One or more teams becoming nothing more than “all-star teams” consisting of players who would have been drafted by NBA teams already had it not been for the mandated “one-year waiting period.” It probably won’t be a “problem” until somebody discovers that these players didn’t bother attending classes in their spring semester - why bother, if you’re going to drop out the day after the team ends its season?
The NCAA likes to try to solve problems before they happen too often - isn’t that why no FBS football team can have more than 25 freshmen (and FCS teams are limited to 30) on scholarship in a season?
Funny how the Sweet Sixteen seems to feature the same bunch of coaches every year, Izzo among them. Certain coaches just seem to have a remarkable talent for getting their teams tournament-ready. I knew when my Georgia Bulldogs were faced with Izzo in the first round, we were doomed.
(Still have my Blue Devils going strong, though.)
Turned on my computer to comment that this ND-KY game is very exciting, but I can’t decide which team I hate more!
Top headline on my Yahoo! homepage is “Cardinal Burke Says That Gays, Catholic Divorcees Just As Sinful As Murderers”. All righty then. Let’s Go 'Cats!
Yay! Michigan State in Final Four. Oh crap, probably to face Duke. An all Big Ten final would be awesome.
Izzo brings two advantages to the tournament vs most coaches. He’s got one of the best, if not the best, film preparation team in college basketball. They leave East Lansing with complete packages on both teams they might face in the second game of the weekend. The preparation difference shows in the records of second games vs first games. Izzo also uses Magic…literally. Tournament time means program alumni come out of the woodwork to motivate the team. One of those is named Ervin “Magic” Johnson. Magic gave a pre-game speech in the locker room before the Virginia game.
Go Green!!! They plowed through a 2, 3, and 4 seed to reset the Final Four clock. Zags are hanging tough but it’s looking like Duke. :smack: As much as I’d love a conference championship rematch… I’m not holding my breath.
On paper, Duke should roll through MSU.
As a lifelong and unrepentant Dukie, I choose to believe that. And not the niggling little voice in my head that tells me the other shoe’s gonna drop.
I would be gutted if God’s Chosen Team lost to thew Spartans next week. But not surprised.