College Basketball 2016-17

Sorry, he's got us on the brink of our first-ever tourney appearance. We're keeping him.

 

@tim, Was going to apologize for even bringing up NW hoops before they locked up the tourney bid, since they lost a few in a row after I did, but the huge win over #7 Wisconsin all but seals it.

 

First domino falls as Gottfried is fired by NC State. The early favorite for that job and also at Indiana if the Hoosiers choose to make a change is Archie Miller. The younger brother of Arizona's Sean has done a great job at Dayton (another 20 win year going now, and took the Flyers to the Elite 8 a couple seasons ago), he is a NC State alum, but it is Indiana and those gigs don't come around too often.

 

I know one thing. It's gonna be darn near impossible to pick a bracket this season. The reason I say that is because I'm sitting here watching Purdue dismantle the Spartans in West Lafayette. Seeing a lot of that this season. Too many quality teams, no one standout, dominating program. I'm not a Gonzaga believer yet. All things being equal, Louisville will be interesting to watch next month. Winning some tough games right now, and, if they get and keep everybody healthy, well, it'll just be interesting. Kentucky? Not improving as much, especially defensively, as most of Cal's previous teams. They'll win a few rounds, but I just don't see them getting as far as they usually do. This bunch of one and doners don't quite have what it takes, I don't believe, effort or character wise, to do it. IU is out, and will be looking for a new coach.

 

It's Christmas in March!! Plenty of time to go over the brackets (I'll post the bracket/password of the group I pick in, nothing more than bragging rights on the line), but wanted to offer congrats to a couple of Fusa'ers who's teams are dancin' (excluding the major conference teams** i.e. Maryland, Minnesota, Louisville, etc..);

@Dynamo; not sure if you are part of the basketball broadcasts as well, but the Eagles punched their ticket for the 2nd time in school history.
@sacffc; Princeton has a rich tradition in hoops (hell, their is a system of play named for them 'Princeton Offense'). The Tigers went undefeated in the Ivy League and topped it off with winning the first ever Ivy League Tournament.
@nevzter; I was at the Honda Center in Anaheim on Friday night when Nev's UC Davis beat my daughter's current school Cal-State Fullerton on a buzzer beater in OT. Davis followed it up the next night and are going to March Madness for the first time ever.
**- The exception to the major conference reference is Northwestern. @tim One of the best stories of the year will come true later today. NW will get off the schnide and be the last school from a Big 5 conference to play in the Ncaa's.

 

@SoCalJoe don't go short changing my dancing for the Gopher's upcoming first round loss to Middle Tennessee St.!!! (insert banana dancing here)

 

Lots of new faces in the big dance this year, including my daughter's alma mater, the NKU Norse. She and a couple of friends drove up to Detroit from Highland Heights to watch them earn their first tournament berth in their first season of eligibility. And just to show that they have a sense of humor, apparently, the committee paired them with the state big dog, UK. They and Louisville are all heading to Indy, along with half the state, I reckon. Should be quite a party. Elsewhere, I still don't know who to pick. There are 8-10 teams that have a legit shot to win, including the defending champs. I may fill out a bracket, but I'll be blindfolded using darts. All that being said, Louisville is definitely one of those teams. And Rick knows how to navigate this tournament really well. He's almost perfected the science of doing it. He still needs help from his players, of course, and this bunch is capable. But so are at least a half a dozen or more others. Kentucky seems to advance further when they're flying under the radar a bit. That's the case this year. And there's always one wild card that makes it to the Elite 8 and, sometimes, the Final 4. Trying to figure out who that will be, along with the first and second round upsets THIS year will be extremely difficult.

 

I have not, but it sounds like must see TV.

 

I've seen 2 or 3 times, it's brilliant. I was in college in the NYC area in the mid 80's. My Mother had gone to St. John's, my brother was at Seton Hall, as far as we were concerned, there wasn't another conference in the country. From 1985 to 1989, 6 of the original 8 members made the final four. Don't ever think we will see something like that again.

 

@encorespanish, literally laughed out loud at your comment, Middle Tennessee took out Sparty last year, but since everyone has picked them to beat your Gophers the reverse 'upset' could happen and Minnesota marches on

All are welcome to join our group, and as stated by Bill Murray in CaddyShack; 'There will be no money, but when you die, on your deathbed, you will receive total consciousness'. You can do 2 brackets as well if you wish;

http://games.espn.com/tournament-challenge-bracket/2017/en/bracket?/addata=2017_TCMen

Name of the Group: WheresTheBlackMarker?

Group ID: 1589434

 

Thanks @SoCalJoe Just entered.

 

The first round was pretty uneventful. The second round? Nova, Duke, Louisville, Florida State...out. Arkansas should have eliminated North Carolina. SOUTH Carolina didn't spit the bit, and knocked out Duke. And Kentucky made big defensive plays at the end to hold off Wichita State. Louisville's poor basketball IQ, something Rick talks about pretty frequently, went bye-bye. And so did Pitino's memory of the aforementioned hoops IQ. Didn't mention it. At all. But that, and a dreadful performance by Quentin Snider, doomed them. I'm not at all sure about what's going to happen next. I'm not sold on the bluebloods left (Kentucky, Kansas, N. Carolina). I think UK wins the rematch with UCLA, but I don't see them beating the Tar Heels again, if they go through, which they should. Is it Zona's year Joe?
It may well be. If Kentucky keeps playing defense, though...it could be another Big Blue March.

 

James, I'm cautiously optimistic that my Cats can get to Phoenix. However, if Zona gets past a tough-minded Xavier team it'll be the 4th trip to the Elite 8 in the last 6 seasons and they've had 3 heartbreakers before (@FulhamDC and his WVU team or the best Gonzaga team in 5 or 6 years would be a huge test).

I'll take UK over UCLA as well (I'd lump the Bruins in the blueblood category). The Teddy Bears are amazing offensively, but just don't see that zone they play good enough.

Oregon was the best team west of Kansas until they lost their great rim protector Chris Bucher, and I have to think Michigan's almost nightmare turned into a fairy tale continues against the Ducks. All UM has done since their plane skidded off the runway and narrowly avoided a tragedy is win 6 games in 2 weeks.

The Big Ten, SEC, Big 12, and Pac 12 are having great tournaments. The ACC is having a nightmare, but the Tar Heels are more than capable of winning 2 games this week.

 

With Crean now out at IU at least I have coaching rumors to follow.

 

And the question is, are they going to wait for UCLA to lose before they go all out to get Steve Alford, or are they going another route? Alford seems the logical choice, but he's been the logical choice ever since Mike Davis left. Or was it Dan Dakich? Anyway, it seems as if it's now or never for him. And if not him, who? I really don't have a good answer for that. Don't think they're gonna pry Brad Stevens away from the Celtics since they're winning, sort of. If Gregg Marshall's ever going to leave Wichita State, now's the time. After those two, I dunno. I think if it's not one of those two, it's a fail.

 

Apparently the shoe companies might be in play here. Indiana is an Addidas school, UCLA was an Addidas school until switching to Under Amour last year, rumors are out there that Addidas would be willing to pay the $7 million dollar buyout in his contract as payback. All that said I'd rather have Marshall or Archie Miller of Dayton. Alford's record as a head coach isn't all that great and he has only taken his teams to 4 Sweet 16's in 22 seasons as a head coach (his 3rd at Ucla), but never beyond. Alford was on the rocks out here and was lucky to have a good season or he would likely have been fired. There might be 2 million other reasons besides just being the prodigal son coming home. The University of California system does not pay their head coaches as much as other schools around the country (Missouri gave Cal's Cuonzo Martin a huge raise to leave Berkeley), there's a report that Alford's salary would pay him nearly 2 millions dollars more a year.

 

No but I don't look for my political ideologies in random places either.