NCAA Tournament Day 3 Thread

[itgoeslike]

1. Honest question: are you surprised Providence lost to Dayton? Are you surprised Georgetown lost to Utah? I'm not. As stated, other than Villanova going down to N.C. State, the conference more or less confirmed what we already knew (a bunch of top 25ish teams mixed in with one really good team).

No and No. In fact, I picked both "upsets". I would put them as a bunch of top 40ish teams mixed in with one really good team. The "RPI affect" boosted their acumen in many minds, but not everyones.

EDIT: Butler is likely better than top 40ish.

2. Dayton played 48 hours earlier, not 24. I doubt fatigue was much of a factor.

Yes, 48 hours earlier. It was less about the fatigue and more about the fact you have to play an 11 seed just to get a date to play a six seed. Any game against an at-large team is not a walk in the park for most teams.

3. See above. Also, 14-seed or not, that Georgia State team was legit. Xavier shouldn't apologize for their sweet sixteen berth.

4. Yup, Villanova really screwed the league. There's no way around it.

5. The RPI is never going to be a great predictor of future performance. I think it does a decent job of rating a league's depth and overall strength. The reason the ACC was third was because they had a bunch of bad teams while the Big 12 and Big East didn't - I think everybody knew the ACC had the best upper half.

I never meant to take anything away from Georgia State, but you characterized Xavier's wins over an 11 seed and 14 seed by saying "Hell, Xavier finished sixth in the league and is now in the sweet sixteen - that alone should put to rest the notion that this is a mid-major league." I would expect them to beat Georgia State during a non-conference game. If they go on to beat Arizona and make it to the final four, then it's a different story.

We agree on 4 and 5. Teams are what they are. Having bad teams at the bottom of your conference doesn't make a top team inherently worse and visa versa.

 

[itgoeslike]

I don't disagree with any of this. I disagreed with your point that both PC and Georgetown underperformed and weren't "underdogs."

My suggestion was that both teams played about what you would expect, given the circumstances. There was little chance of Georgetown beating Utah, and PC/Dayton was a toss-up, regardless of the seeds.

The rest of your points are fair. The BE didn't come out of this tournament looking particularly good. Neither did the BXII, though.

My point is they underperformed vis a vis their seedings and "expectations". They performed exactly how I expected.

 

[tzznandrew]

My point is they underperformed vis a vis their seedings and "expectations". They performed exactly how I expected.

They performed about as well as any rational, avid college basketball watching team would perform.

Which tells you something about the selection committee...

 

[itgoeslike]

They performed about as well as any rational, avid college basketball watching team would perform.

Which tells you something about the selection committee...

Are you saying the NBE were set up to fail? Maybe. I think the committee uses flawed metrics when convenient and ignores them when convenient.

Anyhow, got to jump off. . .

 

[tzznandrew]

Are you saying the NBE were set up to fail? Maybe. I think the committee uses flawed metrics when convenient and ignores them when convenient.

Anyhow, got to jump off. . .

Nope. I just think they relied too heavily on Conference RPI this year in their seeding. I don't think the BXII had 4 of the best 12 teams (2, 3, 3, 3 seeds), nor do I think the BE had 5 of the best 24 teams (1, 4, 6, 6, 6).

The only reason they got there was because the committee must have looked at conference RPI and used that as part of a guide.

 

[gtcam]

If Gonzaga and Wichita go down tomorrow, there will be 1 non-P5 team in the Sweet 16. 2-3 more years of that, and the P5 will take the tournament with them, and we will be gutting UConn's athletic budget.

Wow - this is drastic to say the least
The P5, proportionately will have more teams in
Gonzaga, Wichita State, Gtown, Dayton, No Iowa, Xavier, Butler, San Diego St, UAB, Cincinnati, Ga State made up 1/3 of the round of 32
Others - Harvard, Buffalo, Valparaiso, Northeastern, Wofford, VCU, SMU, UC Irvine- all came within a bounce of beating P5s and being in the Round of 32. If all these teams were victorious it would be 20 non P5 vs 12 P5s.

It doesn't mean that things are rosy but I don't think the sky will fall as quickly as you present
Some stalwarts such as UConn and Memphis(quickly come to mind and I am sure there are many more) had down years and will rebound