March Madness 2023

[MrTPlush]

2 hours ago, yourout said:

K state flops a lot.

Surprised that wasn’t apart of Izzo’s whinefest after losing the other day.

[Fear The Chorizo]

Uconn is just destroying teams - have to be the favorite of what's left standing, yes?  

 

That being said, the way this tourney's going that probably just guarantees they lose next round.

[patrickgpe]

My last thing to cheer for is an all big east final.

[patrickgpe]

Horrible call at the end of the Creighton /SDSU game imho. Refs should have let them play 

[Fear The Chorizo]

10 minutes ago, patrickgpe said:

Horrible call at the end of the Creighton /SDSU game imho. Refs should have let them play 

They did let them play and that was a clear foul call - shoving a guy in the side as he's jumping to take a shot is a 100% foul and should be called a foul no matter what the game situation is.  I'd rather that happen then the refs swallow the whistle and take away the advantage the offensive player created by beating his defender.

Tough way to end the game for Creighton, to be sure - but one could argue the Creighton player got away with shoving the guy he was guarding on that in bounds play that wound up leading to a TO and direct layup to tie the game before then.

[pitchleague]

When I saw the call, I instinctively objected to the whistle and wanted them to "let them play."  Once I saw replay, I changed my tune and totally agreed with the call.

Another good game, though. 

I'd like to see Texas lose next.

[HarryDoyle]

So a 4, two 5s and a 9 are in the Final Four.

I filled out three brackets, the first was my real one, the second my chalk one and the third my go crazy and pick a bunch of upsets. I'm in the 9% with my first, average with my second and 96% with the third.

[MrTPlush]

I picked 5/8 Elite 8 teams correctly. Something only .34% of bracket had accomplished.

I correctly picked…zero Final Four teams correctly. Smh 

Next year everyone will exclaim parity is here and have wacky brackets and reality of 1/2 seed dominance towards the end will return.

[nate82]

16 minutes ago, MrTPlush said:

I picked 5/8 Elite 8 teams correctly. Something only .34% of bracket had accomplished.

I correctly picked…zero Final Four teams correctly. Smh 

Next year everyone will exclaim parity is here and have wacky brackets and reality of 1/2 seed dominance towards the end will return.

Nearly all of the 1 and 2 seeds this year would be 4-6 seed teams in the past.  There wasn’t a true #1 or #2 team this year.  A rather weak tournament this year at the top and a rather strong 4-8 seeds this year.  I wouldn’t expect this to be true next year again.

[MrTPlush]

21 minutes ago, nate82 said:

Nearly all of the 1 and 2 seeds this year would be 4-6 seed teams in the past.  There wasn’t a true #1 or #2 team this year.  A rather weak tournament this year at the top and a rather strong 4-8 seeds this year.  I wouldn’t expect this to be true next year again.

It was a really bad combination of regular season resumes overpowering the fact Houston had the one guy missing due to injury and Kansas had their head coach missing. Add in Purdue not being even remotely that good and 3/4 of the top seeds really weren’t primed for the tourney at that point. Had Houston been healthy or Kansas had their coach, the Final four could look a lot less weird. 
 

Maybe there weren’t any bonafide elite teams to jog to a Final Four birth, but I think it more was just how the bracket decided to just fall in a goofy way. Those one seeds were most certainly one seeds on paper and even in past years in many cases. Certainly no where near #4 seeds+. 

[Fear The Chorizo]

I think it's a product of the changing landscape of college sports due to transfer and NIL rules, and it shows up alot faster in a sport like college hoops where the players with the most talent are often gone to the NBA before they turn 20 - these factors all make it really tough for even the best programs to maintain quality depth, and it leads to surprise runs of teams with good/not great cores of grown men beating teams of 18-20 yr old kids.  SDSU and Miami definitely fit that bill - FAU is an outlier but their road to the final 4 got helped in a big way by being in the bracket with their 2nd round game against a 16 seed.

 

[pitchleague]

On 3/26/2023 at 4:33 PM, HarryDoyle said:

So a 4, two 5s and a 9 are in the Final Four.

I filled out three brackets, the first was my real one, the second my chalk one and the third my go crazy and pick a bunch of upsets. I'm in the 9% with my first, average with my second and 96% with the third.

This is amazing, because every year I do the exact same thing--three brackets, the exact same way you did.  Yep, my "upset special" bracket won the contest over 38 other brackets in our contest group.

[CheezWizHed]

What is a "chalk" bracket? 

[stoutdude04]

On 3/26/2023 at 7:40 PM, MrTPlush said:

I picked 5/8 Elite 8 teams correctly. Something only .34% of bracket had accomplished.

I correctly picked…zero Final Four teams correctly. Smh 

Next year everyone will exclaim parity is here and have wacky brackets and reality of 1/2 seed dominance towards the end will return.

How is this possible? Wouldn't you have had 1 game where 2 of your teams were playing each other or is my brain broken this morning?

[stoutdude04]

4 minutes ago, CheezWizHed said:

What is a "chalk" bracket? 

A bracket where there are little to no upsets.  

[young guns]

39 minutes ago, stoutdude04 said:

How is this possible? Wouldn't you have had 1 game where 2 of your teams were playing each other or is my brain broken this morning?

He picked the wrong winner in that matchup.

[stoutdude04]

1 hour ago, young guns said:

He picked the wrong winner in that matchup.

Ha - yep.  Knew my brain needed some catching up this morning.  Thanks! 

[MrTPlush]

I’m trying to be interested in this Final Four, but it just isn’t really interesting. The fact it is all lower seeds makes it a bit boring. None of them are exactly Cinderella’s, I suppose maybe FAU…but hardly a great storyline.

The lack of high seeds lacks the elite coaches/players as apart of the storyline. Honestly, I feel like I’m watching the NIT or some lesser tournament because of it.

 

[yourout]

Refs doing everything they can to give it to SDSU but they keep missing free throws.

[pitchleague]

FAU totally changed their game in the second half.  They were attacking and building to that 14-point lead.  And then, suddenly, they slowed way down and began to play the ol’ “play not to lose” ploy.

They deserved to lose.

The last five (ten?!?!) minutes of game time l was just brutal to watch from both teams.

[HarryDoyle]

2 hours ago, MrTPlush said:

I’m trying to be interested in this Final Four, but it just isn’t really interesting. The fact it is all lower seeds makes it a bit boring. None of them are exactly Cinderella’s, I suppose maybe FAU…but hardly a great storyline.

The lack of high seeds lacks the elite coaches/players as apart of the storyline. Honestly, I feel like I’m watching the NIT or some lesser tournament because of it.

 

I feel the same way. It's great when these underdogs pull off the upsets in the first or second round but in the end nobody wants to see them in the Final Four. I actually forgot the games were on tonight until I came here.

[CheeseheadInQC]

On 4/1/2023 at 9:22 PM, HarryDoyle said:

I feel the same way. It's great when these underdogs pull off the upsets in the first or second round but in the end nobody wants to see them in the Final Four. I actually forgot the games were on tonight until I came here.

Maybe I just followed it less because it was no longer part of my job, but I don’t know that it would have mattered. Most of the teams, even the top seeds, seemed pretty anonymous or you knew about them for the wrong reasons (hello Alabama). The women’s tournament had more of the classic story lines: the national player of the year taking down the unbeaten juggernaut only to lose in the final. And yes, as a Badger fan that did give me flashbacks.

[MrTPlush]

9 hours ago, CheeseheadInQC said:

Maybe I just followed it less because it was no longer part of my job, but I don’t know that it would have mattered. Most of the teams, even the top seeds, seemed pretty anonymous or you knew about them for the wrong reasons (hello Alabama). The women’s tournament had more of the classic story lines: the national player of the year taking down the unbeaten juggernaut only to lose in the final. And yes, as a Badger fan that did give me flashbacks.

NPOY was on a #1 seed, COTY was a #2 seed, the reigning champions were a #1 seed, Drew Timme/Mark Few as a #3 seed, Izzo with Michigan St, and Calipari with Kentucky.

That isn't to say the teams within the Final Four didn't earn it, none of them really had a cupcake walk outside of I guess FAU. It's just, they make up an incredibly boring Final Four with nothing to really cheer for. If we quizzed people on these teams prior to the start of the tournament people wouldn't have been able to name the coach or a single player on the teams. Collectively there is only one team with any kind of real relevance in basketball.

It is what it is. It  is like if the Brewers played the Mariners in the World Series. Nothing against those teams, but no one outside of those two locals would ever actually want that to happen.