MARCH MADNESS! ! !

i would have thought miami (OH) would have gotten in this year..go Montana....

Miami of Ohio was snubbed, as was Buffalo. The MAC is the Rodney Dangerfield of college basketball conferences.

The MAC always gets fucked....

Bianca --> B.S. Business Adminstration, 1999 -- Oakland University; Rochester, Michigan

I know that the #16 seed has never beaten the #1 . . . but I can hope.

Pretty incredible story. 9-18 entering the MCC tournament. Three upsets later, they're in the play-in game.

Y'all sleep on Fairleigh Dickinson every year, but I'm here to warn you. Don't make that mistake this year.

My picks are Illinois, Louisville, Wisconsin and Michigan State.

Awesome. Four games in, and two of my Sweet Sixteen picks gone.

Great.

my sweet 16: illinois, alabama, arizona, oaklahoma, washington, louisville, ucla, west virginia, (bygod) north carolina, florida, kansas, uconn, duke, syracuse, utah, kentucky

my final 4: illinois, louisville, kansas, duke

champs: illinois (great team, lotsa home court advantage)

as of the four games completed thus far, i'm out 2 (can't imagine many picked alabama to drop)

Interestingly, many of the guys on ESPN Radio had Alabama as a first-round exit. I believe Andy Katz this morning tabbed them as a good pick to lose to UW-Milwaukee.

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Animalman said:
Awesome. Four games in, and two of my Sweet Sixteen picks gone.

Great.

Blame Pitt's loss on being stuck in Sioux Falls. It'll make ya feel better.

Utah's losing now, too. That would be another one of my Sweet Sixteeners.

You suck at this.

Kansas is out.

I'll have that fork now. I'm done.

Quote:

Pig Iron said:
Oklahoma St, Duke, west Virginia, Kansas...

West Virginia and Duke in the final game...

Go baby go......

The"Expert": uconn lost
65for65: no way
65for65: that's it, i'm screwed
65for65: fuck the tournament
The"Expert": fuck the tournament? all right, i can see you don't want to be consoled here, dude. come on, donny, let's go get us a lane.

Duke is going to fucking die.

lil update for this weekends FIGHT! ! !

When West Virginia got up by 20 points, I was ready to go get a lotto ticket and ask Pig Iron for some numbers.

My bracket is mortally wounded.

At least since it's Kentucky and Michigan State, instead of Duke, I won't have to see that god damn Laettner shot another twenty times, as I had previously feared.

heh, wv played how many overtime games?..man, they were fun to watch... Oh well, go Louisville...

....I think my heart skipped about 80 beats...

In truth, I did think Michigan State was the better team(in that they're more experienced, and more skilled offensively), but after Pat Sparks' miracle, I was so sure Kentucky was the team of destiny. Didn't turn out that way.

I am really going to miss Chuck Hayes. Never the most talented guy on the floor, but always the one with the biggest heart. Right up there with Wayne Turner and Tony Delk on my all-time favorite 'Cats list.

Fused, you dead man?

He might as well be. I talked to him on the phone during the game. He was going to stop here when he got back into town. All my attempts to call have been fruitless.

He might have exploded.

I hear ya, I felt like I was having an ulser watching that game. If Hunter Thompson hadn't killed himself already, he probably would have tonight. Did Fused drive down to Austin to see it live?

I probably could have done that, had I planned it out beforehand. The drive back would have been excrutiating, though.

Quote:

Animalman said:
In truth, I did think Michigan State was the better team(in that they're more experienced, and more skilled offensively), but after Pat Sparks' miracle, I was so sure Kentucky was the team of destiny. Didn't turn out that way.

I am really going to miss Chuck Hayes. Never the most talented guy on the floor, but always the one with the biggest heart. Right up there with Wayne Turner and Tony Delk on my all-time favorite 'Cats list.

All I ask is 2 questions...

1. Will commentators please take Coach K's penis out of their mouths? 3 years ago, Indiana, also from the Big Ten, beat Coach K's Dukies in the Sweet 16. Friday night, another Big Ten team, beats them again. Coach K is a great coach, but for all the greatness lauded on him, in the "new" college basketball (where players either skip college or leave quickly, K's got 1 title, as does Izzo and Boeheim and Williams).

2. Can the Big Ten please get some love? And I'm still sticking with my pick of Illinois. I said last November to watch out for Illinois and there's no reason to change that assessment today. Though I would be perfectly fine with Izzo cutting down the nets again. I like that guy. Weber...jury's still out, though I feel for him for the loss of his mother during the Big Ten Tourney. Even my youngest daughter was totally into the Spartans-Wildcats game last night. The second OT was killing her.

And while I've never been a big Pitino guy (having gone to Cincinnati, I've long hated Kentucky), taking his 3rd different team to a Final Four has to put him in the rarefied air of great coaches.

3 teams in the sweet 16 and 2 in the final 4 looks great for the big 10...

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Pig Iron said:
3 teams in the sweet 16 and 2 in the final 4 looks great for the big 10...

It does, but going into the tournament and through the season..."oh, it's a down year for the Big Ten..." Crap, I say.

It was a down year for the Big Ten, comparatively. The ACC, Big 12 and Big East all had a lot more depth. Illinois and Wisconsin were the only teams in the entire conference with wins against ranked, non-conference teams. The ACC had five teams with such wins.

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Jim Jackson said:
1. Will commentators please take Coach K's penis out of their mouths? 3 years ago, Indiana, also from the Big Ten, beat Coach K's Dukies in the Sweet 16. Friday night, another Big Ten team, beats them again. Coach K is a great coach, but for all the greatness lauded on him, in the "new" college basketball (where players either skip college or leave quickly, K's got 1 title, as does Izzo and Boeheim and Williams).

Firstly, almost nobody expected Duke to do what they did in the regular season. They lost their best player(Luol Deng), their leader(Chris Duhon) and their top recruit(Shaun Livingston) to the draft. They were a team that was not incredibly experienced, not overly talented, and certainly not very deep. On paper, this was one of Coach K's worst teams(at least of the last 15 years), so for him to get them a #1 seed and a place in the Elite Eight was pretty special.

He has more NCAA tournament victories than any other coach in history, and more Final Four appearances than any coach not named Dean Smith or John Wooden(twice as many as Bob Knight or Lute Olsen). He also has eight straight Sweet 16 appearances, and shows no sign of stopping that streak anytime soon.

In the last 15 years, Coach K has three titles. Nobody else has two. Discounting that fact because two of his titles were in an era when college players tended to stick around longer isn't really fair. He had no advantage over anyone else.

He recruits despite havng higher academic standards than most schools, graduates more of his players than most other athletic programs, and continues to win in what is usually one of the, if not the toughest conference. He turned down a coaching job on one of the most prestigious franchises in the NBA, and he's generally considered to be one of the nicest guys you'll ever meet.

I'm far from a Duke fan, but I think Mike Krzyzewski deserves just about every bit of the praise he receives.

He's got the AMEX commercial. He's on the Chevy commercial. He's omnipresent.

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Animalman said:
In the last 15 years, Coach K has three titles. Nobody else has two.

Jim Calhoun's UConn team has two, last year and 1999.

I'm not saying Coach K does not belong in the pantheon, but he's not Dr. Naismith.

Quote:

Animalman said:
It was a down year for the Big Ten, comparatively. The ACC, Big 12 and Big East all had a lot more depth.

Yet the Final Four consists of two teams from the Big 10, one from the ACC, and one from C-USA. Whatdya know?

And one of those Big Ten teams had to beat a #1 and a #2 seed to get to St. Louis.

Yeah, down year in the Big Ten. Except when it comes to the tournament.

Quote:

Jim Jackson said:
Jim Calhoun's UConn team has two, last year and 1999.

I'm not saying Coach K does not belong in the pantheon, but he's not Dr. Naismith.

Somehow I had forgotten about last year's UConn team. Hurm.

James Naismith invented the game, but that doesn't make him its best coach. Actually, he's not even the best coach in Kansas history. He's the only Kansas coach ever to have a losing record. His importance to the game is unequaled, but he was not the better coach.

Quote:

Jim Jackson said:
Yet the Final Four consists of two teams from the Big 10, one from the ACC, and one from C-USA. Whatdya know?

That's the magic of the tournament.

It wasn't my intent to suggest that Naismtith was a better coach. But all the lauding Coach K gets, you would tend to think he'd invented the game.

Coach K does very well. But if he keeps getting shoved in our faces, we'll only grow to dislike him more. Not saying it's his fault, but it isn't like the guy needs more exposure.

You can catch the ACC-Big Ten challenge next November, when the ACC will try to win for a seventh straight year(in the seventh year of the annual event).

Yet strangely, that ACC-Big Ten challenge in November will not change that two Big Ten teams are in the Final Four right now, will it?

Last elite 8 game. Double OT. I havent felt this bad since the election. Im fucking crushed.

Exactly, and don't forget Ohio State was on self-imposed suspension...

Miami University also got hosed...bullshit..sure they went on to lose at the NIT , but who cares about the NIT..

Anyone have any good ideas for the NIT..I say it should be played at the beginning of the year so it means a little bit..

Quote:

Jim Jackson said:
Yet strangely, that ACC-Big Ten challenge in November will not change that two Big Ten teams are in the Final Four right now, will it?

Michigan State and Illinois played very well in the tournament. They deserve to be where they are.

But the quality of teams in the Big Ten was down from previous years, with many of the more storied programs struggling(Indiana, Michigan, Purdue).

By the way, Seth Davis licks his own taint.

Next year will be Mike Davis' last year at Indiana unless he goes to the NCAA tourney. That's the only thing that will save his job.

Looks like Marvin Williams will turn pro, especially if NC wins it all.

I'll be stunned if Williams doesn't go, especially since this is one of the weaker High School classes of the last few years. He is a beast.

I wouldn't be surprised if at least one of the junior trio departed, as well.

Aaaaaannd......we have a final. Tar Heels vs. Illini.

NC just toyed with Michigan State in the second half. Sean May plays like his dad did at Indiana in '76. Looks like Roy Williams may finally get the brass ring.

Well, they all declared.

I kind of expected Sean May to say. Not just because he said he would, but because he seemed like the "stay in school" type to me. I'm not sure why.

That leaves David Noel as the leading scoring on the team, at 3.9 PPG. Ouch.

Williams is a great recruiter, though, so I'm not ready to say UNC is in for another multi-year tournament drought.

NBA Commisioner David Stern is really pushing for a minimum age requirement of 20 years, and I'm hoping it happens. It's so obvious Marvin was just using UNC to raise his stock, and that's so unfair. I've never understood how a minor can join a league where the major sponsors are Miller, Budweiser, Heineken and a lot of other beer and alcohol companies.

I expected May to stay in school as well, if anything because I would assume his dad would encourage him to.

However, this sure makes the upcoming draft interesting. Everyone just got bumped down a notch.

I agree with what you're saying, in principle, but it's not like schools don't use the athletes, too. UNC got what it wanted. Money, attention, and now a championship.

Quote:

Animalman said:
Well, they all declared.

Will the last Tarheel leaving the Dean Dome please turn out the lights?

Quote:

Animalman said:
I agree with what you're saying, in principle, but it's not like schools don't use the athletes, too. UNC got what it wanted. Money, attention, and now a championship.

True, the school uses the athletes however the athlete received a scholarship from them so IMO its the least they can do. The athletic department has to make its money somehow, especially when the alumni aren't donating for whatever reasons.

Jermaine O'neal suggestd not too long ago he thinks Stern's motivations for an age limit could be interpreted as racism. That high school players have been Rookie of the Year and All Stars and that college experience isn't necessary to play in the league

However, Jermaine might not be the one to talk since he never really became a solid starter until his 4th year in the league. The year he would have originally entered the NBA in the first place.