March Madness


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My final final four consists of Duke, Kentucky, Kansas, and Butler (changed from Old Dominion).

Damn Mike...great pick in Butler!

Thanks. Joining me is the 0.2% of ESPN users who also picked Butler in the Final Four! That pick saved me in my family bracket pool.

VCU was impressive today against Kansas. I think Butler will win, but it could easily go either way.

Kentucky vs. Uconn should be a good matchup. Both teams have exploded in the tournament.

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This is the first year where the Final Four doesn't have a No. 1 or a No. 2.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NCAA_Men%27s_Division_I_Basketball_Championship#.231_seeds

Thanks again to Merlin for the link. If you click on a blue-colored year, you can see the bracket from that year and all kinds of other neat facts. Example: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_NCAA_Men%27s_Division_I_Basketball_Tournament

Mike

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Mike:

Damn...boy!

Nice pick.

Butler vs. Connecticut! Monday night!

Be there!

Adam

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Mike:

Damn...boy!

Nice pick.

Butler vs. Connecticut! Monday night!

Be there!

Adam

You bet I'll be there! I can't wait!

I can't believe Butler made it back to the final after losing Hayward. Brad Stevens ought to be getting a raise sometime soon.

I think part of Butler's efficiency results their coupling of team play and individual responsibility. All of their guys play team ball (very well) and also seem to hold themselves responsible for their performance and the team's success. It's as if each player gives himself the responsibilities of both his performance and the team's performance, while recognizing the important link between the two. (How else could a relatively untalented mid-major be so successful two years running despite losing a star player in between?)

Other teams who exclusively play team ball, like Wisconsin, seem to share the responsibility across all the players. Their individuals seem to be "repressed" to the point of losing any individual responsibility. Then, the only responsibility that exists is that to the team, which is spread over all individuals regardless of their performance... and that's why Wisconsin really sucked at times (33 points against Penn State? Seriously?!). And why they lost to Butler :) .

I'm going to pick Butler again (it's worked for me so far!). I'll say Butler 68, Uconn 66.

Mike

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What's queer about this year is that all the Elite Eight teams seemed to have been fairly evenly matched. To win it all requires skill and luck. I want the rare drama of an overpowering team making it to the final game only to be stopped cold, like Duke once did to UNLV. I have to root for Butler, now that my Arizona has fallen. Boo!, Connecticut! I am glad Connecticut beat Kentucky, though. The Kentucky coach is both brilliant and sleezy, IMHO.

--Brant

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Mike:

Looking good at the half - Butler by 3 and three UCONN players with 2 fouls.

Wow...worst shooting second half I ever saw in a final game.

Great run though.

Sorry your guys did not win Mike.

Adam

Edited by Selene
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Mike:

Looking good at the half - Butler by 3 and three UCONN players with 2 fouls.

Wow...worst shooting second half I ever saw in a final game.

Great run though.

Sorry your guys did not win Mike.

Adam

Man oh man that was terrible.

Part of it was awful bounces and the rest was the horrendous game plan (exclusively three-pointers all game long).

My Dad said before it started that usually the Super Bowl is the dullest game of them all. He was right on the money tonight!

The one bright spot: Uconn's win means that my cousin, by far our youngest competitor who knows nothing about basketball, is now our family pool's first repeat champion in 12 years. HAH! :) That's definitely worth the Butler loss.

Mike

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Well, it'd now seem Arizona could have won it all if Williams' 3-point attempt had gone in against CN. All this means is too much talent bleeds out of the NCAA now to go pro. It didn't look like Butler even belonged in that game by the end. Not the tournament's best. I nominate AZ/CN for that, but missed a lot of games.

--Brant

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Well, it'd now seem Arizona could have won it all if Williams' 3-point attempt had gone in against CN. All this means is too much talent bleeds out of the NCAA now to go pro. It didn't look like Butler even belonged in that game by the end. Not the tournament's best. I nominate AZ/CN for that, but missed a lot of games.

--Brant

I agree completely.

In terms of the best game of the tournament, Kentucky/Ohio State may have been close but it's a shame we couldn't have seen Arizona and Uconn play for the title.

Kentucky, Arizona, and Uconn were very poorly seeded. Kentucky should have been a 2 (and Florida should have had their 4 seed). Arizona clearly was better than a 5. And Uconn is clearly higher than a 2 (SDSU, Florida, and Notre Dame got 2 seeds over Uconn, Arizona, and Kentucky?? Huh?).

Then again it's really easy to say this after the tournament's over... <_<

Mike, currently frustrated with the tournament but hopeful that the loss of talent will spawn another wild bracket next year

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  • 11 months later...

Today's "bubble games:"

My picks, I do not know a lot about these teams so this is lots of "intuition" going:

Western Kentucky 58

Miss. Valley State 52

Iona 70

BYU 73

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Final

Western Kentucky 59

Miss. Valley State 58

Iona 72

BYU 78

2 for 2

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  • 4 years later...

Brant:

Damn, what happened to Arizona tonight?

They did not look good against Wichita State.

A...

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56 minutes ago, Selene said:

Brant:

Damn, what happened to Arizona tonight?

They did not look good against Wichita State.

A...

If they aren't badly banged up and stay that way, Wichita State could reach the final four.

Arizona was out-coached. Not for this game, but respecting the season. Wichita State, the way they turned defense into offense was a thing of beauty.

Arizona lost the player that could have made a difference, McConnell to the NBA.

The previous coach at Arizona, Lute Olson, could recruit in So. CA because he used to coach at Long Beach. That's gone; that's over.

College basketball has been degraded by early exit for the NBA of the best talent. So far not Arizona's problem. It will be going forward. It's everybody's problem now.

Arizona is now just another PAC 12 team. So is every other Pac 12 team.

Arizona could have won this game, but likely not the next one.

Arizona ran poor offensive sets and that had more to do with the ball not going in than Wichita's defense. Point guard deficiency.

I didn't get to watch all the Arizona games this year because my new TV service, Direct TV, doesn't carry the Pac 12 network. (Keep cable, BTW.) I knew they weren't going to be as good as last year, but I kept hoping until they lost too much on the road and lost their 49 home game winning streak--the best in the nation.

Except for Arizona I wouldn't watch much college ball. I watch even less NBA. The only thing left for me sports-wise is the NFL, but I hate to see players banging their heads. I don't watch much if any boxing. I don't believe in hitting people in the head unless you intend to kill them. The current cage matches are two idiots performing for morons. I change the channel.

I would never go to a live sporting event. I did a few times when young and was bored. I watched the Boston Patiots play the New York Titans in the Polo Grounds in the early 1960s and Ted Williams--didn't get a hit--in a night game in Boston in 1956. I watched the San Francisco Giants play somebody in San Francisco in 1963--Willie McCovey--as the USS Oriskany floated by left to right. And I saw Ron Laver play an exhibition match in Tucson in 1959 or 1960(?). I didn't understand the game enough to know what I was looking at.

--Brant

 

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1 hour ago, merjet said:

#15 seed Middle Tennessee defeated #2 seed Michigan State. It's a bracket buster. Of the 12 "experts" at CBSSports.com, 6 picked Michigan State to win it all. Crippled my bracket. I picked them to get to the Final Four. 

Middle Tennessee surprised me with their interior defense, apparently did the same with Michigan.

A...

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