Big Bubble Night Discussion

[billybud]

Lunardi's current 8 & 9 ( projected seeds) can be dangerous...

Louisville, OK State, LSU, BYU, Xavier, Loyola-Chicago

 

[HuskyFich]

My biggest concern, and I’m surprised no one is talking about this, is that zero players on our roster have March madness experience. I truly believe that having a couple guys on the roster with March madness experience would go a long way in making a deep run, or even getting out of opening weekend due to the nerves.

we're not talking about it because for the last 5 years it hasn't happened.
Trust me, we all know we have zero March Madness experience.

 

[Tyler2Rings]

My biggest concern, and I’m surprised no one is talking about this, is that zero players on our roster have March madness experience. I truly believe that having a couple guys on the roster with March madness experience would go a long way in making a deep run, or even getting out of opening weekend due to the nerves.

Even as someone who tends to look at things with Husky colored glasses, I completely agree. Our champ teams have always been led by guys who at least had seen the second weekend of the tourney. Any expectation of a deep run puts a lot of stock in Bouknight's sheer ability to make up for this lack of experience

 

[HuskyHawk]

There aren’t 20 teams in the country better than us with Bouk back, but I dont expect the NCAA to get the seeding anywhere close to correct. I honestly don’t even care what our seed is at this point. Outside of Gonzaga and Baylor every team looks mediocre and even those teams don’t scare me. Maybe I’ll feel different after the Nova game, but I don’t think so

The seeding is going to wild. With these uneven schedules and very limited out of conference play they have less information to go on than they ever have. Aside from the clear 1 & 2, I don't think anybody stands out.

 

[OkaForPrez]

Even as someone who tends to look at things with Husky colored glasses, I completely agree. Our champ teams have always been led by guys who at least had seen the second weekend of the tourney. Any expectation of a deep run puts a lot of stock in Bouknight's sheer ability to make up for this lack of experience

Agreed. I'll add we're not a young team. 62% of our minutes have been played by Juniors and Seniors this year. There's a lot of basketball minutes logged.

Bouknight, while a Sophomore, is one of the more stoic players we've had over the last 30 years. The game has looked too fast at times for Gaff, Dre and Adama, but never Bouk.

Add him to the upperclassman and 75% of your roster feels "ready" for a big stage.

And remember we're a plus defending and plus rebounding team. That will be helpful with the chips down.

 

[bendm]

1 bid for the aac lol

 

[HooperScooper]

The seeding is going to wild. With these uneven schedules and very limited out of conference play they have less information to go on than they ever have. Aside from the clear 1 & 2, I don't think anybody stands out.

CBS: We almost never see teams one or two wins above .500 receive at-large inclusion, but given how you're tracking the sport now, do you think it's reasonable to forecast there could be teams right near .500 that wind up making the field?

MB: Hard for me to speculate on that. As I said Saturday [on CBS], there's 1,000 games left and almost all those will be conference games. There are leagues that chose to spend more of their games in-conference this year -- and some were totally in-conference. For the leagues that have traditionally been multi-bid leagues, their résumé will primarily be their conference games, and they may be 10-8, 11-11 or 10-10. That could be a factor where we're having to evaluate those teams that's close to .500 and again, it goes back to a little bit about who you beat, where'd you beat them, opportunities for quality wins and did you take advantage? Those are all important details. The ability to look at common opponents and if there's head-to-heads -- there might be some -- but we lost a lot of nonconference opportunities and that's certainly going to factor into the smaller résumés to the committee. I don't want to get into how that might play out in real time, but I certainly think it will have an impact in our ability to evaluate teams across the board.

CBS: How is the committee grappling with this inevitability of vastly different game totals at the end of the season? One team might wind up having nine or 10 more results than another under consideration in a similar spot. Is that an advantage or disadvantage?

MB: I don't know that there is a real clear answer on that. It is new territory and clearly every committee member is going to have to look at it through the prism with which they see it. We've had conversations about how difficult that's going to be. Take Saint Louis for example. They've got a high-quality win over LSU out of conference. Then all of a sudden they're put in a position where they've not played many conference games and been put on pause, or someone else's put them on pause in their schedule. Minnesota has played a pretty full schedule of 21 games, struggling to win on the road, what does that mean to their total résumé as it relates to teams that haven't had the opportunity to go on the road? Those are great conversations. No one will be penalized for being on pause. Sometimes it just doesn't work and we'll do the best we can at trying to find a way to across the span of games to try and find some commonalities and some things that give you a chance to measure one against the other. And ultimately find the 37 at-larges that give you the best field.

Court Report: Selection committee chair Mitch Barnhart explains new NCAA Tournament bracketing process

Matt Norlander's weekly college hoops notebook also details Belmont's at-large case and Gonzaga's push for a wire-to-wire honor

www.cbssports.com

 

[shizzle787]

We have to sweep Georgetown and beat Marquette at home. All three are must wins. Seton Hall is likely a must win. It can't be discounted that we will probably have one more game scheduled because we have an opening. If we win 4 out of 5 or 6 I think we are in safely even if we are one and done in the BET.

 

[ToolzieFan]

We have to sweep Georgetown and beat Marquette at home. All three are must wins. Seton Hall is likely a must win. It can't be discounted that we will probably have one more game scheduled because we have an opening. If we win 4 out of 5 or 6 I think we are in safely even if we are one and done in the BET.

Hurley said that since we couldn’t get Nova for 2/25, we won’t be making up any other games.

I agree that for more wins should put us in, and I feel confident we will get at least that many.

 

[bendm]

I agree that four more wins should put us in, and I feel confident we will get at least that many.

yeah i think 4 is the magic number. gtown twice, marquette, and our first game in the BE tourney against SJU are must wins (assuming 3 more conference wins gets us to the 4 or 5 seed against SJU)

anything less and i'll be sweating on selection sunday, but i think we'll beat Hall too giving us an outside shot at the 3 seed

 

[Hans Sprungfeld]

My biggest concern, and I’m surprised no one is talking about this, is that zero players on our roster have March madness experience. I truly believe that having a couple guys on the roster with March madness experience would go a long way in making a deep run, or even getting out of opening weekend due to the nerves.

Add to that a Head Coach who hasn't yet been to the second weekend, except as a player.

But note that KFree, Talik, and Tom Moore have 4 rings between them, and all via UConn.

Still, keep the focus on one game at a time.

 

[Get a Job]

Add to that a Head Coach who hasn't yet been to the second weekend, except as a player.

But note that KFree, Talik, and Tom Moore have 4 rings between among them, and all via UConn.

Still, keep the focus on one game at a time.

I've given up correcting people, since it makes me look like a richard, but I have the feeling you appreciate it. So FIFY

 

[nelsonmuntz]

We should have played some local schools between mid January and mid February when we had some big breaks. 3 more wins would look great on our resume right now. I think we are still in good shape to get in, but our seed could suck.

 

[Waquoit]

My biggest concern, and I’m surprised no one is talking about this, is that zero players on our roster have March madness experience. I truly believe that having a couple guys on the roster with March madness experience would go a long way in making a deep run, or even getting out of opening weekend due to the nerves.

Overrated. We have ballers.

 

[gwhuskyfan]

We should have played some local schools between mid January and mid February when we had some big breaks. 3 more wins would look great on our resume right now. I think we are still in good shape to get in, but our seed could suck.

If it means we're a 10 or 11 vs. 8 or 9 sign because the lack of games played I'm so down for it

 

[tzznandrew]

We should have played some local schools between mid January and mid February when we had some big breaks. 3 more wins would look great on our resume right now. I think we are still in good shape to get in, but our seed could suck.

we might have also performed better in the games we lost coming off break if we had played during them.

 

[RayRay]

Lunardi has us in first four out again as of this morning.

 

[Dream Jobbed 2.0]

I feel like if we win tomorrow it’ll really highlight how good this team is full strength and we can go from bubble to 8 or 9

 

[Hi-Low]

Lunardi has us in first four out again as of this morning.

Jerry Palm on CBS has updated bracket this morning with UConn as a 9 seed so opinions vary. No doubt we need wins.

2024 NCAA Tournament Bracket Predictions - Bracketology - College Basketball

CBS Sports is helping you get ready for March Madness with the latest news, picks, and predictions for the 2024 NCAA Basketball Tournament Bracket.

www.cbssports.com

Palm also has Seton Hall as first team out, makes sense to me, the best wins they have are Xavier & UConn and nothing OOC. The USC win & Xavier OK win are big.

I don't understand Lunardi's rationale to have Xavier & Seton Hall in the field but UConn as first team out. We have a better resume than both imo but pretty close....should all be in really unless fumbles.

Depending on the outcome of Nova game that @ Seton Hall game could become a play-in type game.

 

[RayRay]

Jerry Palm on CBS has an updated bracket this morning with UConn as a 9 seed so opinions vary. No doubt we need wins though.

Palm also has Seton Hall as first team out, which makes sense to me, the best wins they have are Xavier & UConn.

Right, I don’t believe Lunardi is gospel, but from what I’ve gathered, he modeled his bracketology after what he thinks the committee would do. Who knows, like you said, there’s several others that have us a 9 or 10 seed. We just need to beat Nova and take care of business the last 4 games and we will be fine.

 

[BFieldHusky]

Jerry Palm on CBS has an updated bracket this morning with UConn as a 9 seed so opinions vary. No doubt we need wins.

Palm also has Seton Hall as first team out, which makes sense to me, the best wins they have are Xavier & UConn and nothing OOC.

I don't understand Lunardi's rationale to have Xavier & Seton Hall in the field but UConn as first team out. We have a better resume than both imo.

Depending on the outcome of Nova game that @ Seton Hall game could almost be a play-in game.

Interesting thing is on Palm, if I am reading his S-Curve right, he has in by about 15 teams. I am trying to use the 12/13 line as the cut off for automatic qualifiers.

 

[HooperScooper]

 

[wheelerdog]

We MUST beat Georgetown twice and Marquette. A win against either Seton Hall or Villanova would the seal the deal. If we lost those two, I suspect we'd need to win 1 if not 2 BET games.

 

[GetTheFacts]

How on earth is North Carolina in "Last Four Byes" category? They have seven losses, including a loss against Georgia Tech and NC State. The only good win they have is against Stanford, who is the last team in the field.

 

[Kolumbo]

espn - 1st 4 out
cbs - 9 seed
usa today - 1st 4 out
ncaa.com - 10 seed
the athletic - work to do

Bracketology 101: UConn’s current NCAA tournament prospects - The UConn Blog