I'm going to go out on a limb and say that no BE team other than us will make a F4 in the next 10 years. I'd be hard pressed to thinking they'll make an Elite 8.
Marquette and Creighton were second weekend teams just the past 2-3 years ago
And?
Nothing changed that drastically to think that can’t happen again. Hell I hate St John’s this season and I think they could make a sweet 16.
Don't you know that EVERYTHING CHANGED in the past year, or something? I can't keep up. Either way, the Big East is the WCC and one seeds will dominate forever. Please don't check this prediction in the future.
St. John's won't lose to Harvard. If they do Pitino might pull what he did to the Celtics and walk out half way through the season.
Villanova will be good again.
We are never seeing a 2023 F4 again. What we saw last year will be very close to what we see going forward.
I mean last year will be much closer to what we see normally but that’s also largely how it has been in the past. We will continue to see weird anomaly years because basketball is subject to a lot of game to game randomness and variability and a single elimination tournament will lead to weird outcomes sometimes.
There will be years like 2025, there will also be years like 2024 and years like 2023.
No, not when the little guys are minor league systems to the big guys. The days of the Cinderella are over. There is too big a talent disparity.
I just don't think that's true at all. The portal works both ways. There will be mid major super teams of undervalued P5 transfers too
Shaka refuses to use the portal and it’s killing them. There is no shortage of NIL donors there so it’s his choice. I think he gets one more year. He lost a lot of scoring from last year and thinks he has the players to win in his system. But they’re atrocious this year considering where they were two years ago and even last year.
I’d put heavy money on the fact you’re wrong. Weird theory - you think a mid major can grab a bunch of washed P5 transfers and be tournament good? No chance. The only team I even see doing it is a team like Memphis, and they never do much. Too many analytics these days to give coaches a sense of who is a winning player/efficient.
If he can't make the adjustment after this abysmal year, then he's asking to be pushed out. It's one thing to have a rebuild year where you are marginal, but this team is terrible. Even when you are rebuilding, you don't go from being this bad to then being a tourney team.
It’s a single elimination tournament in a sport where there is a ton of variability. We may see fewer cinderellas but there will be big teams that crap the bed with an early exit, brackets that break down, and paths that allow deep runs to mid major teams. If we moved to a 3-game series each round, I’d probably agree with you, but the NCAA tournament is not set up to find the most talented team every year.
I’d put heavy money on the fact you’re wrong. Weird theory - you think a mid major can grab a bunch of washed P5 transfers and be tournament good? No chance. The only team I even see doing it is a team like Memphis, and they never do much. Too many analytics these days to give coaches a sense of who is a winning player/efficient.
You are even seeing how the portal impacts efficiency and KP when you can build super teams. KP highs this year, last year are like 5-7 points higher on average than 2023. That is significant.
When the teams that have money grab your best players, and also get the best HS players, you don't have a chance. Not sure how anyone is missing this.
This sounds like Navery talking.
Never is a long time.
I don't think so - sure, maybe you'll see some teams outside the top 20 or so get picked off (that 7 vs 12 game). There is a pretty clear line of the very good teams to the also rans around 20ish. That bottom 5 of the top 25 has been musical chairs. The top 20 programs will be hoarding all the top talent and creating wide margins.
The reason why nobody else sees it is that you're ignoring half of the transfer portal. For every mid major kid you talk about transferring up to these top 20 programs, there's a subsequent high major player transferring down to a more appropriate level. You've got teams like FAU, McNeese State in the past and High Point and Grand Canyon that are led by high major transfers that can dominate that level
This is my fear. Not that weaker programs can't get talent, and compete, they can't hold them long enough to put something together. I'd say 2 years would do it, but if they are good enough to mount a run "next year", they have players good enough to be poached "this year". Difficult to bring a crew in, develop a "program" and get there in one year. Ask Pitino.
Take a look at where the landscape is going. It's not going to go backwards. Football is leading the charge, and that has consolidated significantly. Basketball and power conferences are simply following suit. There is definitely more variability in hoops given 5 players, but to a point.
You think that high level players are going to leave for High Point & McNeese State over a power school? Flawed thinking. The reason they'll go to HP & GC is because they're just not that good.
You're completely missing the point, which I'm pretty sure is just your goal on this board these days. I'm not saying players are going to choose to go to low and mid majors over high majors. I'm saying you're focusing on all the players transferring up to high majors, but roster spots are a zero sum game. For every player going up one has to go down, and those guys who suck at the high major level are still able to dominate at the mid and low majors.
And schools who never got 4 stars out of high school are now getting 4 stars out of high school. I already explained this to him but he simply won't look past players transferring up which we all know constantly happens but we don't pretend it's the only thing happening.