Sunday #2s both win.

[Crossover2]

UCONN joined by Oregon. To the final four !!

 

[Sven23]

Yes and if you take a look at other schools boards there is infinite whining about Oregon and UConn having virtual home games. Then, it has to be explained to the complainers that no #1 would want to be dropped to #2. Would MSU really want to be #2 seed and get sent to Greensboro to face the #1 overall seed in the Elite 8. Would UL really rather be a #2 seed and go to the closest site, Chicago and face the #2 overall seed ND in the Elite 8.

 

[DEpup]

I just don't think the committee took injuries into account correctly. OR loses when Hebard was out and UConn didn't have enough style points when KLS was out to get #1s... But now they are atleast playing. Bibby is still not playing and Lville never had enough weapons to be a #1 in my book.

 

[garddog]

Yes and if you take a look at other schools boards there is infinite whining about Oregon and UConn having virtual home games. Then, it has to be explained to the complainers that no #1 would want to be dropped to #2. Would MSU really want to be #2 seed and get sent to Greensboro to face the #1 overall seed in the Elite 8. Would UL really rather be a #2 seed and go to the closest site, Chicago and face the #2 overall seed ND in the Elite 8.

I would rather have been in Greensboro or Chicago than Portland. Would have been a huge MSU crowd either place. Only 8 hours to Greensboro and 10 to Chicago, driving. And Chicago is a cheaper flight. 1 or 2 seed means nothing in the end. Conn and Oregon could start buying tickets months ago because they knew they would get those regionals.

 

[GoUconn7961]

I would like another #2 to win - Go Stanford...
Better yet - let's have an all #2 FF

 

[Carnac]

A # 1 seed in the tournament has NEVER guaranteed a team a pass to the final four. You must get to the final four the same way John Houseman use to tell us how Smith Barney made their money "the old fashioned way", remember?

UConn returning to the FF for a 12th consecutive time is phenomenal. Any coach will tell you how hard it is to get there one time, let alone twice regardless of how good their teams may be. Mississippi St. played in the last two losing to South Carolina and Notre Dame. Baylor has had good teams of late, but has not been to a final four since winning their championship in 2012. [LINK]

Geno remarked in his post game presser how unbelievable it is. The causal fan doesn't realize how hard it is to qualify to play that final weekend in any given year, let alone for 12 years in a row.

Congratulations to Geno, his staff, the team and everyone associated with the program. Geno has always said that the hardest game of the tournament to win is the regional championship game. This game gave credence to that theory. Well, Four down two to go. Today is a good day. Now it's on to Tampa and the final four. Go Huskies.

 

[GoDawgs4]

Credit to Oregon for playing well but the geography of the whole thing was completely wrong.

Had State been #1 in Chicago and Oregon #2 also in Chicago, then at least you have a fair neutral court to play on.

Same with Louisville/UCONN. Put them in GSO or Portland, OR. Then at least you have an impartial neutral court to play on.

UCONN and Oregon may still have won but the crowd would not have been 95%+ for them.

 

[Carnac]

I would like another #2 to win - Go Stanford...
Better yet - let's have an all #2 FF

Stanford v Notre Dame tomorrow. I'm going to be rooting for Stanford BIG time in this one. This is a game you don't want to miss. Stanford doesn't shrink or disappear in crunch time.

Iowa comes in winners of 13 of their last 14 vs Baylor tomorrow. Look for Iowa to play with a "no fear, we don't have anything to lose" approach because nobody believed we would make it to round 4.

 

[GoUconn7961]

Credit to Oregon for playing well but the geography of the whole thing was completely wrong.

Had State been #1 in Chicago and Oregon #2 also in Chicago, then at least you have a fair neutral court to play on.

Same with Louisville/UCONN. Put them in GSO or Portland, OR. Then at least you have an impartial neutral court to play on.

UCONN and Oregon may still have won but the crowd would not have been 95%+ for them.

UConn has won in plenty of hostile environments over the years. Though we haven't been shipped out west in quite some time I do remember that happening with positive results. If we can win in the hostile arena of South Bend we can win anywhere. And, any team worth it's mettle can do the same; not just UConn.

 

[DEpup]

Credit to Oregon for playing well but the geography of the whole thing was completely wrong.

Had State been #1 in Chicago and Oregon #2 also in Chicago, then at least you have a fair neutral court to play on.

Same with Louisville/UCONN. Put them in GSO or Portland, OR. Then at least you have an impartial neutral court to play on.

UCONN and Oregon may still have won but the crowd would not have been 95%+ for them.

Sorry but this is still about making money. OR and UConn can sell tickets.....

 

[GoDawgs4]

I get that but the game has grown enough now that Regional Finals should be a true neutral court. That game should not be a virtual home game for any team.
This year they could have easily divided the regionals to have had each with a true neutral court for all four of them.
In the past , I know they were dependent on the revenue from the crowds of certain teams thus that is why it was done. Now I don’t think it is necessary to do that anymore.

 

[Blueberries]

I get that but the game has grown enough now that Regional Finals should be a true neutral court. That game should not be a virtual home game for any team.
This year they could have easily divided the regionals to have had each with a true neutral court for all four of them.
In the past , I know they were dependent on the revenue from the crowds of certain teams thus that is why it was done. Now I don’t think it is necessary to do that anymore.

So you'd rather fly all the teams randomly around the country rather than have teams play where they can sell tickets and teams can drive and be less impacted by things like time zone changes?

 

[Sven23]

Credit to Oregon for playing well but the geography of the whole thing was completely wrong.

Had State been #1 in Chicago and Oregon #2 also in Chicago, then at least you have a fair neutral court to play on.

Same with Louisville/UCONN. Put them in GSO or Portland, OR. Then at least you have an impartial neutral court to play on.

UCONN and Oregon may still have won but the crowd would not have been 95%+ for them.

UConn should have been #1 to start, They were the 3rd overall in the last reveal and won out.

Oregon is arguably deserved a #1 over MSU. Oregon had a better SOS, RPI, and beat MSU in the season.

 

[Sven23]

I get that but the game has grown enough now that Regional Finals should be a true neutral court..

LOL...

 

[Carnac]

UConn has won in plenty of hostile environments over the years. Though we haven't been shipped out west in quite some time I do remember that happening with positive results. If we can win in the hostile arena of South Bend we can win anywhere. And, any team worth it's mettle can do the same; not just UConn.

The Irish faithful don't wait for UConn to enter the arena in South Bend to boo them. They're waiting for them when the bus pulls up to the player's entrance. Those boo-birds are serious. They don't even wait for the bus to come to a stop.

 

[GoDawgs4]

Well had Oregon been #1 and State #2, they still should have been in Chicago.

No team regardless should have a built in virtual home court advantage.

Transportation today is easy enough so teams traveling is no big deal.

and I said Oregon may have still won today on a true neutral court but there was no doubt the crowd helped them tremendously. They deserve a lot of credit and they played very well.

 

[bballnut90]

Yes and if you take a look at other schools boards there is infinite whining about Oregon and UConn having virtual home games. Then, it has to be explained to the complainers that no #1 would want to be dropped to #2. Would MSU really want to be #2 seed and get sent to Greensboro to face the #1 overall seed in the Elite 8. Would UL really rather be a #2 seed and go to the closest site, Chicago and face the #2 overall seed ND in the Elite 8.

Absolutely they'd prefer those neutral matchups. The top 6-7 are incredibly even this year, so homecourt advantage (10k+ crowds) is a huge factor, especially late in the season. The home crowd easily may have been the difference in both games today. I personally have no problem with the home atmosphere in regionals since it brings strong crowds and excitement to the games.

My big complaint is that I wish the locations didn't consistently favor schools that don't have much competition in their region. Ex. UCONN has played in front of home crowds 7 of the last 8 years regionals (almost always in Bridgeport or Albany) and the West Regional is positioned exclusively in the northwest for 5 straight years which favors Oregon in the same manner.

 

[HuskyFan1125]

Well i have posted this before. Won’t matter much next season as no regional in the northeast.

 

[SimpleDawg]

Does anyone recall what Geno said just 2 weeks ago?

"I don't think a #1 or #2 matters one way or the other."

Looks like he was right. Just saying.

...

 

[Sven23]

Absolutely they'd prefer those neutral matchups. The top 6-7 are incredibly even this year, so homecourt advantage (10k+ crowds) is a huge factor, especially late in the season. The home crowd easily may have been the difference in both games today. I personally have no problem with the home atmosphere in regionals since it brings strong crowds and excitement to the games.

My big complaint is that I wish the locations didn't consistently favor schools that don't have much competition in their region. Ex. UCONN has played in front of home crowds 7 of the last 8 years regionals (almost always in Bridgeport or Albany) and the West Regional is positioned exclusively in the northwest for 5 straight years which favors Oregon in the same manner.

Cities bid, look at the list of bids when they come out. They are certain locations that get regionals b/c some arena's keep bidding, once they have success. Some places near major programs just don't bid for various reasons.

 

[UcMiami]

If you want to complain about court neutrality, you might as well start at the first two rounds which are all on home courts (except the committee decided to reward SC this year, when in all previous years if the home court was unavailable then the lowest of the other seeds was awarded it.) By the regional, unless you are UKy you get a true neutral court. The fact they pay attention to geographies is to prevent empty houses - the women's game just does not have enough fanatics to move people around the country.

MsSt was 'lucky' to be given a #1 seed, their reward was filling the western regional opening. If the had gotten a two seed they almost certainly have been the #2 in one of the other regions.

Bottom line - you have to win the games against the teams and in the locations they are assigned. And the best way to control location is to schedule and win against a strong OOC.

 

[Wbbfan1]

What would the attendance been in the Four Regionals if local teams had not been sent to them? You would have had attendance of less then 3000 in all of them. I guess the only solution is to have all the Regionals in Vegas or sites that have a Huge WBB Fan base.

Credit to Oregon for playing well but the geography of the whole thing was completely wrong.

Had State been #1 in Chicago and Oregon #2 also in Chicago, then at least you have a fair neutral court to play on.

Same with Louisville/UCONN. Put them in GSO or Portland, OR. Then at least you have an impartial neutral court to play on.

UCONN and Oregon may still have won but the crowd would not have been 95%+ for them.

 

[Wbbfan1]

Notre Dame will have an advantage next year as well with a Regional being in Fort Wayne Indiana.

Well i have posted this before. Won’t matter much next season as no regional in the northeast.

 

[Oldbones]

Credit to Oregon for playing well but the geography of the whole thing was completely wrong.

Had State been #1 in Chicago and Oregon #2 also in Chicago, then at least you have a fair neutral court to play on.

Same with Louisville/UCONN. Put them in GSO or Portland, OR. Then at least you have an impartial neutral court to play on.

UCONN and Oregon may still have won but the crowd would not have been 95%+ for them.

I still remember a very painful loss to Notre Dame in Indianapolis, but regarding this year's arrangement:

 

[MSUFan2003]

Credit to Oregon for playing well but the geography of the whole thing was completely wrong.

Had State been #1 in Chicago and Oregon #2 also in Chicago, then at least you have a fair neutral court to play on.

Same with Louisville/UCONN. Put them in GSO or Portland, OR. Then at least you have an impartial neutral court to play on.

UCONN and Oregon may still have won but the crowd would not have been 95%+ for them.

Do you really think it mattered though? I really think Oregon beats us in a neutral court.