A College Basketball Thread

[MumblingBono]

UConn (duh), WV and Pitt will all make the Final Four.


Years from now, Marquette will be the answer to a trivia question about the greatest UConn team of all times.

 

[Hewson]

UConn...maybe.
WV and Pitt...no chance.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

west virginia, chance... but not a good one. you can never rule out a team with so many good shooters... they get on a hot streak and they can make a run, much like last year. but don't bet the house on it.

pitt? would have to have one weak ass bracket for them to get there. stranger things have happened.

and not for nothing, i'll take the ray allen team or the richard hamilton team over this team. heck, i might even take the emeka okafor/ben gordon team.

uconn will deffinetly be on my final four short list, though... which, for the record, is this...

duke
uconn
gonzaga
memphis
florida
villanova
michigan state
random big east team that no one's expecting... i.e. wvu, georgetown... some big east team that not many looked at always seems to squeek in there... now with so many teams, odds are someone will make a run

 

[popacrobat]

UCONN is the best team in the country

they will win it all

damn right

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Duke barely beating both Va. Tech and FSU at Cameron is enough to convince me that they won't win the title, probably not even make the final 4.

so am i supposed to believe that uconn won't make the final 4 because they struggled at home against LSU and that perenial college basketball powerhouse army?

 

[randhail]

We can't rule out Providence making a run in the Big East Tourney, getting the automatic berth, and making a run in the NCAAs....Sorry I was dreaming again

 

[Hewson]

so am i supposed to believe that uconn won't make the final 4 because they struggled at home against LSU and that perenial college basketball powerhouse army?

yes.

 

[Hewson]

So the ACC has suspended the officials from saturday's Duke/FSU game for 1 game because they "fouled" up on how they doled out Technicals, unnecessarily giving one to FSU's Alexander Johnson for being bumped by Duke's Shelden Williams. (Note to other college players, ask BC and FSU players about this, you'll find that using your body to impede a Duke player's fist is a foul on you, not the Dukie).
The NFL could learn a few things from the ACC.

The question now is will other officials learn and start calling Duke games in a fair manner or cave in and call the games lopsided the moment coach KrooozyZoooski bitches.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

oh please like coach k & duke are the only one who gets a home court advantage from the refs. a guy who i coached with was once a college ref and he told me a story of how louie carneseca had complete control over the referees... the only refs that could T him up were the ones who've been there a long time. any young ref who T'd him up baisicly wouldn't be in the big east for very long. this goes on everywhere there's a big time coach with a big time program. it's one of the worst kept secrets out there... it's a shame, yes, but it's a fact and it doesn't just happen at duke.

it's good to see that they were suspended though... at least the ACC has some balls, unlike the NFL.

 

[Hewson]

Of course the BC game was played in Chestnut Hill, and Duk had a 1,477-3 free throw adavantage.

 

[speedracer]

I really can't blame the refs for hastily calling T's on both Shelden Williams and Alexander Johnson to defuse a heated situation even though Johnson didn't actually shove Williams. (Johnson had hacked Williams pretty hard on the layup attempt, and had been called for an intentional foul earlier in the game.) The problem is that T's also count as personal fouls, which is just dumb, dumb, dumb. Pushing and shoving after the whistle is unsportsmanlike, but it doesn't affect the actual game and shouldn't be penalized like that. We all agree that refs shouldn't "decide the game", and the easiest way to make sure that doesn't happen is to make sure, as much as possible, that their calls don't have the power.

The refs don't consciously give Duke an advantage. They probably do so subconsiously to some small extent, and you better believe Krzyzewski is the best at gaming the refs and coaching his players to draw dubious fouls.

And here's A-Rod at Duke.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

Of course the BC game was played in Chestnut Hill, and Duk had a 1,477-3 free throw adavantage.

welcome to the ACC BC

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

i don't like how all of you are picking on duke. duke is just as good a team as any of you and it isn't very nice. why do you all hate duke so much?

 

[Hewson]

I'm not picking on Duke, I just think Duke is insane, there is a difference.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

touche'

 

[phanan]

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

i will say this... if duke is to be knocked off early in the NCAA tourney, it will be by a team that runs a princeton-style offense... i.e. lots of backdoor cuts

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

tyler hansbrough looks lost right now

 

[the rockin edge]

 

[speedracer]

i will say this... if duke is to be knocked off early in the NCAA tourney, it will be by a team that runs a princeton-style offense... i.e. lots of backdoor cuts

I kind of liked the Florida A&M offense from last year, where you play 5 swingmen and iso Shelden Williams or (for this year) Josh McRoberts for a dribble drive. Memphis should seriously consider it if they get a rematch with Duke.

Any offense that takes advantage of Duke's overaggressive perimeter defense is a good idea.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

i don't know how any basketball fan, despite any dislike for duke, wouldn't be at least mildly interested in the prospects of seeing J.J. Reddick & Adam Morrison duel it out in the national championship game...

forget the fact that they're both white, which will get brought up regardless if this was to happen... they are the two most skilled players in the nation right now, regardless of color. they're not blessed with incredible athleticism, just incredible talent brought on by years and years of hard work. you can be given jumping ability at birth... you can be blessed with incredible height... but no one is born with an incredible jump shot.

i'm not a duke or gonzaga fan... i'm really not a fan of any one college program, thus the penalty for growing up in the new york area. all the pro teams you could possiably want, no friggin college teams worth a damn.

so really the only teams that i actually root for to do well are teams where i know someone... a friend of mine plays for northwestern, so i'll root for them until he graduates, and another friend of mine is an assistant coach at quinnipiac, so i hope they do well, too. but how anyone who considers themselves to be a basketball fan won't be rooting, even a little bit, to see these two players go head to head in the NCAA tourney is beyond me.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

i used to go to jay wright basketball camp when i was a wee lad and he was at hofstra... now he's all grown up on espn they grow up so fast.. sniff sniff

my high school basketball coach / coaching mentor got jay wright his first coaching job at the university of rochester... so maybe one day i'll be on espn... probably as a drunken fan getting beat up by ron artest, but eh... a man can dream can't he?

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

did they higher the NFL's refs to do this game?

Villanova gets an opening steal, has a fast break, and they stop the game because the shot clock wasn't working, despite the fact that the shotclock had zero effect on the play at hand.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

was it entirely neccesary to put bill raftery and jay bilas on the same game?

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

woo hoo

 

[speedracer]

Do you suppose Mike Nardi had a traumatic experience as a kid where he was playing hockey, scored an empty-net goal at the end of the game, and got pummeled by some goon on the ensuing faceoff?

Just curious.

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

quack.. quack.. quack...


i think he thought that the better play would be to dribble the clock out, which if there was, oh, 5 seconds left, it might have been... but with 14 seconds left, take the basket... there's no one within 20 feet of you

 

[Chizip]

see ya mike, dont let the door hit ya on the way out

 

[Headache in a Suitcase]

"where's my laptop"

god i love college basketball

 

[Windmilllane]

see ya mike, dont let the door hit ya on the way out

He and Sutton are drowning away their sorrows in a bar.