March Madness 2025

[RedStickBrew]

Not sure why Badger fans are complaining about their draw.  Montana hasn't beat anyone good all year.  If they advance they will be playing either a bad defensive team in BYU or a bad offensive team in VCU.  VCU is probably the worst matchup for this team.

Marquette has a very good defensive team in New Mexico to contend with.

I think I would pick Florida to win it all right now.

 

[RedStickBrew]

Per On3:

West Virginia is suing the NCAA over its tourney snub. Hilariously, they might actually have a case, though it's unlikely this will affect the tournament at all.

This lawsuit may also be why WVU isn't in the College Basketball Crown despite reports they'd been invited. https://www.on3.com/college/west-virginia-mountaineers/news/west-virginia-governor-taking-legal-action-against-ncaa-selection-committee-over-snub/

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

9 hours ago, RedStickBrew said:

Per On3:

West Virginia is suing the NCAA over its tourney snub. Hilariously, they might actually have a case, though it's unlikely this will affect the tournament at all.

This lawsuit may also be why WVU isn't in the College Basketball Crown despite reports they'd been invited. https://www.on3.com/college/west-virginia-mountaineers/news/west-virginia-governor-taking-legal-action-against-ncaa-selection-committee-over-snub/

Pomeroy posted on Bluesky an interesting idea.

Basically, with one exception (Xavier instead of West Virginia), Wins Above Bubble predicted the selected teams. Pomeroy just argued that the committee should just let WAB decide who qualifies for the tournament. It becomes a computerized calculation, and then the committee can focus on seeding and bracketing fairly.

I get that that will get a lot of blowback. And I'm on record as thinking UNC's inclusion was pretty bad, which Pomeroy finds generally okay because of its grounding in WAB. I'm not sold yet, but I'm phenomenally curious about it. It works for hockey, right? The teams are selected entirely based on a mathematical formula (that's duplicated in the Pairwise rankings)?

Obviously, you'd need to make sure WAB, or whatever metric you use is sophisticated enough. 356 teams is a lot. But it can't be as hard to solve as chess, right? Or Go? My one thought about why it might work: the distinction between the 37th or 38th at-large (in) and the 39th one is almost always really arbitrary and clumsy. If you just make that process transparent and quantitative, you free up the committee to do the harder work of properly seeding and bracketing. That deserves the bulk of the time because it's the hardest process, and it has the most impact on the actual tournament results.

[Jim French Stepstool]

This is very non-scientific, but someone (might've been Dick Vitale) once floated the idea that you can't go to the tournament if you aren't at least .500 in your conference. As overly simplistic as that sounds I think it has some merit.

 To me, VCU-BYU is one of the most intriguing matchups in the entire round of 64 & a must-see even if UW wasn't opposite in the bracket. I'm taking the Rams in what to me is a really tough call.

One of the kids on Montanas' roster is Amari Jedkins, a 6-7 sophomore from Racine Case. He's played in 28 games.

I go along with@RedStickBrew. Florida to cut 'em down.

[RedStickBrew]

9 hours ago, Cool Hand Lucroy said:

Pomeroy posted on Bluesky an interesting idea.

Basically, with one exception (Xavier instead of West Virginia), Wins Above Bubble predicted the selected teams. Pomeroy just argued that the committee should just let WAB decide who qualifies for the tournament. It becomes a computerized calculation, and then the committee can focus on seeding and bracketing fairly.

I get that that will get a lot of blowback. And I'm on record as thinking UNC's inclusion was pretty bad, which Pomeroy finds generally okay because of its grounding in WAB. I'm not sold yet, but I'm phenomenally curious about it. It works for hockey, right? The teams are selected entirely based on a mathematical formula (that's duplicated in the Pairwise rankings)?

Obviously, you'd need to make sure WAB, or whatever metric you use is sophisticated enough. 356 teams is a lot. But it can't be as hard to solve as chess, right? Or Go? My one thought about why it might work: the distinction between the 37th or 38th at-large (in) and the 39th one is almost always really arbitrary and clumsy. If you just make that process transparent and quantitative, you free up the committee to do the harder work of properly seeding and bracketing. That deserves the bulk of the time because it's the hardest process, and it has the most impact on the actual tournament results.

I would welcome this idea. I think the main thing is transparency for all teams to understand what criteria their resumes are being judged on no matter which system is being used 

[RedStickBrew]

8 hours ago, Jim French Stepstool said:

This is very non-scientific, but someone (might've been Dick Vitale) once floated the idea that you can't go to the tournament if you aren't at least .500 in your conference. As overly simplistic as that sounds I think it has some merit.

 To me, VCU-BYU is one of the most intriguing matchups in the entire round of 64 & a must-see even if UW wasn't opposite in the bracket. I'm taking the Rams in what to me is a really tough call.

One of the kids on Montanas' roster is Amari Jedkins, a 6-7 sophomore from Racine Case. He's played in 28 games.

I go along with@RedStickBrew. Florida to cut 'em down.

I agree the BYU-VCU is really interesting. BYU is a good offensive efficiency team and bad defensively. VCU is the opposite. 
 

McNeese is one to watch for the 12 seed upset. Former LSU coach Will Wade has that team playing well

[owbc]

48 minutes ago, RedStickBrew said:

I would welcome this idea. I think the main thing is transparency for all teams to understand what criteria their resumes are being judged on no matter which system is being used 

I agree but I’m sure it will create some new problem as teams try to optimize to please the computer. 

The bubble controversy is just something to fill three days between selection Sunday and the tourney start. In a week everyone will have forgotten who the snubs were anyway. 

This isn’t like the college football playoff where a snub can entirely destroy a program. Sorry FSU… 

[RedStickBrew]

23 minutes ago, owbc said:

I agree but I’m sure it will create some new problem as teams try to optimize to please the computer. 

The bubble controversy is just something to fill three days between selection Sunday and the tourney start. In a week everyone will have forgotten who the snubs were anyway. 

This isn’t like the college football playoff where a snub can entirely destroy a program. Sorry FSU… 

This is also true. The NCAA bubble teams all have some glaring hole in their resume. When all is said and done if you are complaining about being snubbed you probably should have just won a couple more games

[Jim French Stepstool]

6 hours ago, RedStickBrew said:

When all is said and done if you are complaining about being snubbed you probably should have just won a couple more games

As nice as Milwaukee would've been for UW, I think along these same lines...........don't wilt vs Oregon, don't take the day off defensively vs PSU, and it probably happens.

[RedStickBrew]

Per Nicole Auerbach:

Now official: Darian DeVries is the new Indiana head men's basketball coach.
 

Tough week for WV basketball. There was also some talk he would end up at Iowa

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

6 minutes ago, RedStickBrew said:

Per Nicole Auerbach:

Now official: Darian DeVries is the new Indiana head men's basketball coach.
 

Tough week for WV basketball. There was also some talk he would end up at Iowa

Good hire for IU. I think that's an impossible job, so I hope DeVries got paid.

 

[RedStickBrew]

36 minutes ago, Cool Hand Lucroy said:

Good hire for IU. I think that's an impossible job, so I hope DeVries got paid.

 

I’m sure he got paid well. Indiana seems to have some access to funds for the basketball program 

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

1 hour ago, RedStickBrew said:

I’m sure he got paid well. Indiana seems to have some access to funds for the basketball program 

Sounds like 5 mil a year. I would say coaching at Indiana is a hard way to earn that much money, but I get the appeal.

Great opening NCAA game. Hope SDSU-UNC delivers more of the goods. SDSU gets after you, but, man, is their offense ugly. At least those low-tempo Badger teams of the Bennett era were efficient. They just didn't play a lot of possessions. This Aztecs squad has to win with defense. I'd like to see them do it. 

[RedStickBrew]

22 minutes ago, Cool Hand Lucroy said:

SDSU gets after you, but, man, is their offense ugly. 

You weren’t kidding about that. Rough start offensively 

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

Well, one of these teams clearly doesn't belong. I guess we were all right.

SDSU's  inability to be any kind of threat offensively is a killer here. UNC shooting the lights out doesn't help. SDSU was going to have to win this one in the 60s in all likelihood. Good bye to that.

[Jim French Stepstool]

Methinks UNC sat & listened to 48 HRS of the "you shouldn't be in the tournament" rhetoric & that fueled them big time. I expect them to give Ole Miss all they can handle.

Bama State had many opportunities to hang their heads & get buried after being down 5-8 pts much of the game & never did. Credit due.

[Jim French Stepstool]

I'm a big McCollum fan. Nothing agin DeVries but I think McCollum should be Iowas' #1 target all along-----heck, I'd have gone after McCollum if I was Indiana, too.

Fran is making noises like he wants to stay in the biz. Lots of schools & potential jobs in his old east coast stomping grounds, but the dude's 65 & it sounds like he disdains the idea of constantly rebuilding through the portal. I hate the portal too, but I don't think mentioning that is going to sound good in an interview.

[RedStickBrew]

8 hours ago, Jim French Stepstool said:

Methinks UNC sat & listened to 48 HRS of the "you shouldn't be in the tournament" rhetoric & that fueled them big time. I expect them to give Ole Miss all they can handle  

I wouldn’t be surprised if UNC were favored in that game.

I have a child at Ole Miss and I watched quite a few of their games this year. They started off good but faded some down the stretch. I’m expecting an early exit for them

[HarryDoyle]

10 hours ago, Jim French Stepstool said:

Methinks UNC sat & listened to 48 HRS of the "you shouldn't be in the tournament" rhetoric & that fueled them big time. I expect them to give Ole Miss all they can handle.

Bama State had many opportunities to hang their heads & get buried after being down 5-8 pts much of the game & never did. Credit due.

All they can handle? UNC will win.

[Cool Hand Lucroy]

3 hours ago, RedStickBrew said:

I wouldn’t be surprised if UNC were favored in that game.

I have a child at Ole Miss and I watched quite a few of their games this year. They started off good but faded some down the stretch. I’m expecting an early exit for them

I'm more optimistic on Ole Miss than lots of folks, I think, mainly because of Beard's track record in the NCAAT. I also think last night was way more about SDSU than UNC. North Carolina has not beaten a single team as good as Ole Miss this year. They beat UCLA on a neutral. That's as close as they get. I'd take Ole Miss over UCLA on a neutral.

 

[Jim French Stepstool]

5 hours ago, RedStickBrew said:

I wouldn’t be surprised if UNC were favored in that game.

I have a child at Ole Miss and I watched quite a few of their games this year. They started off good but faded some down the stretch. I’m expecting an early exit for them

I think UNC favored is certainly possible. These SEC teams have been through such a meat grinder. Battle tested for sure.

The shine is off him a little bit, but I loved Beard when he coached at Texas Tech.

[RedStickBrew]

5 minutes ago, Jim French Stepstool said:

I think UNC favored is certainly possible. These SEC teams have been through such a meat grinder. Battle tested for sure.

The shine is off him a little bit, but I loved Beard when he coached at Texas Tech.

I like Beards basketball philosophy and their style of play. Ole Miss just didn’t finish strong and lost a game or two at home they should have won. Perhaps the transition to the NCAA tournament will reinvigorate them for a run.

[Jim French Stepstool]

IMO Montana had a pretty good defensive philosophy in the 1st half. That & their hitting five 3pt in the half is keeping it relatively close. Just enough intermittent sloppiness from UW doesn't help.

I think Amos would avg double figures in the Big Sky. Hopefully he can approach that next year in the Big Ten.

Five blocked shots in a half by Bucky is a pretty rare animal.

High Point making things a little interesting.

[RedStickBrew]

Creighton taking it to Louisville was a surprise for me.  Almost a home game for a good Louisville team 

[adambr2]

On 3/18/2025 at 3:45 PM, Jim French Stepstool said:

As nice as Milwaukee would've been for UW, I think along these same lines...........don't wilt vs Oregon, don't take the day off defensively vs PSU, and it probably happens.

They didn’t even get an NIT invitation, though, so I don’t think that they were particularly close. They weren’t going to accept anyway.

I never understood teams turning down NIT bids. Maybe for some programs I guess it makes sense, but for pretty much any Horizon League team, get your kids that experience, those postseason reps. Maybe the NIT wouldn’t be treated like such a big joke if teams took it a little more seriously.