NCAA Basketball Tourney March Madness Sweet 16 Friday March 24 Game Thread

RedOctober3829

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Jul 19, 2005
55,300
deep inside Guido territory
I understand that the transfer portal and everything have altered the game in a major way, and made some of the bigger teams susceptible to upsets, but god damn, I think this is a great, exciting product, and has greatly enhanced an already incredible concept in the NCAA Tournament.

I'm very much a casual CBB fan, but what I think is really great about it is the parity and egalitarian nature of who can actually win. No sport I follow has as many viable teams that can realistically believe in winning a title in any given season. College football is a complete joke in that regard. I just think it's fantastic that we head into an Elite 8 with so many different schools and programs with a puncher's chance of winning the whole thing. We've got teams from the PNW, Southern California, New England, Florida, Texas and Nebraska. Teams from small catholic schools, traditional athletic powerhouses and big schools that have never won anything. Teams from six different conferences, and none from the Big 10 or the SEC, the powerhouses of college sports that threaten to completely alter college sports from the way we know it.

I love that all these teams have a shot, I love that kids from unknown programs get a chance to shine, and I love that CBB still represents a lot of the goodness of college sports.
Great post. Agreed on all fronts.
 

wonderland

New Member
Jul 20, 2005
525
It does make for a more unpredictable tournament but it make for a much worse regular season as teams have to learn to play together which leads to a lot of bad basketball. Also, it was fun to watch a team grow together. Or a player mature with time. Those two things are basically out the door.
 

canderson

Mr. Brightside
SoSH Member
Jul 16, 2005
39,447
Harrisburg, Pa.
It does make for a more unpredictable tournament but it make for a much worse regular season as teams have to learn to play together which leads to a lot of bad basketball. Also, it was fun to watch a team grow together. Or a player mature with time. Those two things are basically out the door.
Counterpunch: NIL is letting guys stay longer and not it for pro ball. Timme if he wasn’t getting NIL episode be gone I’m sure.
 

wonderland

New Member
Jul 20, 2005
525
But guys like him and Oscar or even Bacot aren’t staying at smaller schools though.

I think the top programs will figure out how to keep a good core then add the top recruits/transfers.
 

54thMA

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Aug 15, 2012
10,154
Westwood MA
The Elite 8 has the 5th, 9th, 10th, 15th, 16th, 18th, 24th and 25th ranked teams competing for the championship.

I'd be curious to see how that ranks as far as weakest field by rank since the tournament went to 64 teams.

Casual fans can look at this one of two ways; "Gee, it's great to see so many underdogs having a chance to win it all!!!" vs "Meh, I want to see top teams competing for the championship/the highest level of play possible".................

Forget about "a" Cinderella, there are 5 of them at least.

I like to watch the sport for the drama and for the brackets; both of my brackets are toast, so at this point, I have no dog in the fight, I am curious as a fan of the sport how this plays out.

My preference would be UConn, Texas, Miami, SD State, Creighton, Florida Atlantic, Kansas State, Gonzaga in that order.

We'll see.
 

BaseballJones

ivanvamp
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Oct 1, 2015
24,388
Yeah, my preferred NCAA Tournament looks like this:

Lots of close games, all throughout the tournament.
My favorite team winning. :)
Lots of fun Cinderella stories the first weekend.
But by the elite eight, I want to see powerhouses in there. I want to see the best teams competing for the championship.


UConn, by the way, absolutely IS one of the best teams, regardless of their seed. All season long they've shown that when they're right, they're absolutely as good as anyone else in the country. So I know the #4 seed doesn't look so great but they're a wagon when they are right. Which, apparently, they are so far this tourney.
 

bosox188

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Jan 11, 2008
2,923
Marlborough, MA
Yeah, my preferred NCAA Tournament looks like this:

Lots of close games, all throughout the tournament.
My favorite team winning. :)
Lots of fun Cinderella stories the first weekend.
But by the elite eight, I want to see powerhouses in there. I want to see the best teams competing for the championship.


UConn, by the way, absolutely IS one of the best teams, regardless of their seed. All season long they've shown that when they're right, they're absolutely as good as anyone else in the country. So I know the #4 seed doesn't look so great but they're a wagon when they are right. Which, apparently, they are so far this tourney.
Agreed. UConn is currently ranked #1 in KenPom, they were #3 going into last night prior to Houston going down. And they've remained around the top 10 in KenPom and NET all season long. A lot of the West bracket was full of teams ranked higher in the KenPom/NET metrics than their seeding would suggest, I think St. Mary's was actually near the top 10 as well.