South Region Discussion and Analysis Thread

DukeSox

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Dec 22, 2005
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Zags/Iowa state/Georgetown 2/3/4 I will take
 

RedOctober3829

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deep inside Guido territory
1 Duke
16 UNF/Robert Morris
Friday--Charlotte, NC
 
8 SDSU
9 St. John's
Friday--Charlotte, NC
 
4 Georgetown
13 Eastern Washington
Thursday--Portland, OR
 
5 Utah
12 Stephen F. Austin
Thursday--Portland, OR
 
3 Iowa State
14 UAB
Thursday--Louisville, KY
 
6 SMU
11 UCLA
Thursday, Louisville, KY
 
7 Iowa
10 Davidson
Friday--Seattle, WA
 
2 Gonzaga
15 North Dakota State
Friday-Seattle, WA
 

DukeSox

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I mean, Zags were a top 5 team nearly all season. They always go out early but if they make elite 8, duke/zags would be a battle
 

tims4wins

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Not saying Duke will even make it out of the second round, they have their fair share of issues. But I can not remember ever seeing the bracket come out and feeling like we avoided pretty much everyone I wanted to avoid.
 

minischwab

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This region is LOADED with high powered offenses.  3 weeks ago Utah was a top-10 team, now they're a 5-seed?  Iowa State is a 2nd-half juggernaut, a team with 5 Marcus Paiges (can't score in 1st half, can't be stopped in 2nd half). They overcame 10-pt deficits in their last 5 games to win them all, outscoring opponents by 16 PPG in the 2nd half of those games.  And Niang has to be itching to play in the tournament after breaking his foot in their 1st tournament game last season.  
 
Gonzaga has bulk and strong guard play/great shooting, but they've been on cruise control for too long and that worries me.  Stephen F. Austin was a Round of 32 team last year, no reason they can't do it again.
 
Duke catches a break in that they probably will catch SDSU in the Round of 32, and Duke struggles more with great offenses than great defenses.  Love the idea of a Coach K-Larry Brown regional final (K won in 1986 Final Four, Larry Brown won in 1988 Final Four). 
 

tims4wins

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[SIZE=14pt]1 Seed in South Region[/SIZE]
[SIZE=14pt]Duke Last 2 Instances[/SIZE]
[SIZE=14pt]                       2010              2015[/SIZE]
[SIZE=14pt]Losses entering        4                 4[/SIZE]
[SIZE=14pt]Regional               Houston           Houston[/SIZE]
[SIZE=14pt]Final Four             Indianapolis      Indianapolis[/SIZE]
[SIZE=14pt]Won National Title?    Yes               ?[/SIZE]
 

wibi

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Gonzaga was hoping for a 2 in the West but a 2 in the South is the second best choice.  Road games in Seattle and Houston are much better than the alternative but playing in Portland and LA would have been awesome.
 
I'm pretty happy with this matchup even if most of the rest of you guys are discounting Gonzaga this year.  They were on cruise control to end the regular season (players even admitted as much after the home loss to BYU) but picked it back up for the WCC tournament. 
 
Eastern Washington is a team to watch for a Cinderella story.  If Harvey gets hot for them they could easily make a sweet 16 run.
 
Expecting the SFA upset over Utah as Utah has been running on tilt since their 22 Feb loss at Oregon.  Utah backed into the tournament IMHO and did enough early in the season to allow this late season falter. 
 

SLC Sox

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The Utes have looked pretty awful the last few weeks of the season, after looking like a potential 2 seed for several weeks.  In the last three weeks they lost to a horrible Washington team, barely beat a horrible Washington St. team, and lost to Oregon twice.  All on the road.  This team is barely passable away from home, which is why I have no confidence they make it out of the first weekend.
 
They are very talented at both guard positions and have a terrific young C in Jakob Poeltl (pronounced Yawcob Pertle), but roll players tend to disappear when games are close or any semblance of a defensive effort is thrown at them.  I hate the intangibles but this team seems to lack toughness.  They rely on the three ball way too much.  When it is falling they blow teams off the court, but if not they aren't creative and aggressive enough on offense and it gets ugly.
 
I think on talent alone they get by SFA but probably not Georgetown.
 

canderson

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Utah plays into SFA's strength regarding pace, which is good. SFA's biggest weakness is allowing dribble penetration, but on offense ll put them against anyone in the country at generating scoring. Their ball movement is unbelievably good.

Underwood is an absolute beast of an X and O coach. This team is much! deeper than last year's, I feel like they have a swinging shot at the upset.

Utah's guard looks great, but I think SFA can frustrate their big man and get in in foul trouble. But if SFA isn't crisp with passing those guards could eat them alive.
 

wibi

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canderson said:
All these non-alum people picking SFA freaks me out.*
 
* Their home guy vs Duke would be amazing.
 
Us mid-major alums have to stick together (even if some of us are mid-major class sized but play at the major level now). 
 

DukeSox

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Wait what do you mean by "class sized"?
 

wibi

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DukeSox said:
Wait what do you mean by "class sized"?
 
I thought SFA was a much smaller school than it turned out to be.  I didnt realize they had almost the same enrollment as Duke does.  I was trying to make an enrollment size point but ...
 

Mloaf71

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Someone talk me out of Iowa St in the final 4.  I've got Kent, Zona, and Nova in and am trying to not include Duke (have no faith in Zaga to make it).  Am I trying to hard to get an underdog in there?
 

tims4wins

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Mloaf71 said:
 
Someone talk me out of Iowa St in the final 4.  I've got Kent, Zona, and Nova in and am trying to not include Duke (have no faith in Zaga to make it).  Am I trying to hard to get an underdog in there?
 
 
They are on a pretty good run. They have won 8 out of 10, including 5 wins against ranked teams. One of the two losses was also to a ranked team (3 seed Baylor) and the other was a road loss. They are definitely a legit threat to come out of the region. If Duke loses it is likely going to be a team that is going to outscore it, as Duke goes through stretches where they just can't get stops. Iowa State could definitely be that team.
 

DukeSox

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I agree.  ISU is on one of those magical runs that no one is recognizing, but will become fully evident in the rear-view mirror when they make the elite 8 or beyond.  
 
I have ISU in my FF.
 

DukeSox

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wibi said:
 
I thought SFA was a much smaller school than it turned out to be.  I didnt realize they had almost the same enrollment as Duke does.  I was trying to make an enrollment size point but ...
 
Almost? SFA is much bigger - almost twice as large. 
 
SFA has 11,000 undergraduates.  Duke has 6,600 undergraduates.  
 

SLC Sox

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canderson said:
Utah plays into SFA's strength regarding pace, which is good. SFA's biggest weakness is allowing dribble penetration, but on offense ll put them against anyone in the country at generating scoring. Their ball movement is unbelievably good.

Underwood is an absolute beast of an X and O coach. This team is much! deeper than last year's, I feel like they have a swinging shot at the upset.

Utah's guard looks great, but I think SFA can frustrate their big man and get in in foul trouble. But if SFA isn't crisp with passing those guards could eat them alive.
 
Yeah I didn't mean to suggest SFA has no chance, it wouldn't surprise me at all to see Utah lose this one, such is my distaste with the team right now.  And Poeltl does tend to get into foul trouble and take himself out of games.  Anyway, should at least be a good game.
 

wibi

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DukeSox said:
 
Almost? SFA is much bigger - almost twice as large. 
 
SFA has 11,000 undergraduates.  Duke has 6,600 undergraduates.  
 
I posted without doing the proper research.  I saw the top end google numbers (where the reported enrollment is the same) and didnt think to dig into the fact that Duke has more upper level students than they do undergrads
 

Deathofthebambino

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I'm with Wibi here.  I like SFA to beat Utah, and frankly, I think they do so rather easily.  In addition, Tyler Harvey may not only be the most exciting player in the region, he might be the most exciting player in the country that nobody has heard of.  I was kind of pissed to see them both in the same bracket, as I was looking for each team to be my Cindarella this year in their respective regions.  I have them playing each other in the 2nd round, with Eastern Washington riding the hot hand into a sweet 16 matchup with Duke.  This could be a really fun and exciting region, or it could be boring as hell.
 
On the other side, I just went with the favorites and ultimately have Iowa St, losing to Gonzaga, who I have going to the final four and losing to UVA.  We'll see.
 

Cellar-Door

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PC Drunken Friar said:
Haha, wow, the national bracket has exactly 4 upsets in the first round. Two of which are a 8/9 and 5/12.
As it should. Each individual upset is a low probability outcome. It makes sense to choose a few, but everyone is unlikely to pick the same few.
 

DJnVa

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Everyone is picking SFA. Makes me want to go the other way.
 

Cellar-Door

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Utah is a really good team. I think people are putting way too much emphasis on momentum. It's a team that finished top 20 in both adjusted offensive and defensive efficiency, they played Kansas and Arizona close and beat Witchita State.
 
Stephen F Austin is a fun team, but they only played 3 good teams all year and lost all 3, two of which were blowouts.
 

canderson

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Cellar-Door said:
Utah is a really good team. I think people are putting way too much emphasis on momentum. It's a team that finished top 20 in both adjusted offensive and defensive efficiency, they played Kansas and Arizona close and beat Witchita State.
 
Stephen F Austin is a fun team, but they only played 3 good teams all year and lost all 3, two of which were blowouts.
Baylor was the only blowout. They were within 4 or 6 of Xavier until 2:45 or so left. Baylor was a terrible performance and a very strong team.
 

Cellar-Door

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canderson said:
Baylor was the only blowout. They were within 4 or 6 of Xavier until 2:45 or so left. Baylor was a terrible performance and a very strong team.
They scored 2 points in the last 5:42 and lost by 18, that's a blowout. They never got closer than 8 in that time period, and the lead in the second half was less that 6 for one possession only.
They hung around, but never really threatened to win and Xavier turned it on and blew them away down the stretch.
You are pretty clearly mis-remembering if you think it was close in the last 3 minutes, the lead went to double digits at 4:42, and climbed from there.
 

tims4wins

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DukeSox said:
I agree.  ISU is on one of those magical runs that no one is recognizing, but will become fully evident in the rear-view mirror when they make the elite 8 or beyond.  
 
I have ISU in my FF.
Whoops. Oh well I'll take it!!
 

wibi

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That's the Zags team from earlier this year. The one that lost to Arizona in OT by 3
 

SLC Sox

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Congrats, wibi.  I'm looking forward to Utah-Gonzaga for a trip to the Final Four.
 

SLC Sox

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Ken Pomeroy shows Gonzaga-Duke-Utah as the fourth-fifth-sixth best teams left in the tournament with UCLA 16th.  He gives Gonzaga a 76.8% chance of advancing with Duke-Utah basically a tossup (Duke 54.4%).  His system has loved Utah all year, mostly because of its elite defense.
 
Fivethirtyeight gives Gonzaga essentially the same chance of beating UCLA (76%), but likes Duke to win a lot more (66%).
 
Utah has the bigs (Poeltl and Bachynski, both 7 footers) to defend Okafor and maybe slow him down and give themselves a chance.  I think Gonzaga rolls UCLA pretty good.
 

DukeSox

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Utah has 2 guys projected to go in the first round of the NBA draft.  Them being a 5 seed was always so much bullshit. 
 

mandro ramtinez

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jschip1 said:
Ken Pomeroy shows Gonzaga-Duke-Utah as the fourth-fifth-sixth best teams left in the tournament with UCLA 16th.  He gives Gonzaga a 76.8% chance of advancing with Duke-Utah basically a tossup (Duke 54.4%).  His system has loved Utah all year, mostly because of its elite defense.
 
Fivethirtyeight gives Gonzaga essentially the same chance of beating UCLA (76%), but likes Duke to win a lot more (66%).
 
Utah has the bigs (Poeltl and Bachynski, both 7 footers) to defend Okafor and maybe slow him down and give themselves a chance.  I think Gonzaga rolls UCLA pretty good.
I hope Gonzaga shows UCLA no mercy.  A little payback for 2006 is very much in order
 

SLC Sox

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DukeSox said:
Utah has 2 guys projected to go in the first round of the NBA draft.  Them being a 5 seed was always so much bullshit. 
 
They really stumbled at the end of the conference season and I think the committee puts stock in momentum, probably more than they should.