Programs that have won their NCAA 1st round games in 2006, 2007, & 2008 UCLA - Finals, Final 4, Final 4 Memphis - Elite 8, Elite 8, Finals North Carolina - 2nd round, Elite 8, Final 4 Georgetown - Sweet 16, Final 4, 2nd round (OUT for 2009) Texas - Elite 8, 2nd round, Elite 8 Tennessee - 2nd round, Sweet 16, Sweet 16 Pitt - 2nd round, Sweet 16, 2nd round Texas A&M - 2nd round, Sweet 16, 2nd Round These are the only other programs that have MADE the NCAA Tourney in each of 2006, 2007, & 2008 (along with their 2009 prospects) Duke - IN Gonzaga - IN Kansas - IN Marquette - IN Michigan St - IN Villanova - IN Wisonsin - likely IN Arizona - likely OUT Arkansas - OUT Belmont - OUT Davidson - OUT Indiana - OUT Kentucky - OUT Oral Roberts - OUT Winthrop - OUT
You see I don't blame you. You went to school there so you love it like everyone else, but with Duke Vitale and the other ACC lovers at ESPN constantly stroking your ego, you gain your elitism. The ACC is good, but to say the Big XII doesn't deserve 6 is ridiculous at best.
They placed Texas a a 7th seed.....Zoub is so gonna get abused. As a Duke fan, I rather play any of the other 7th seed BC, Cal, Clemson.
The Big 12 is off this year. Heavily. Top to bottom. If you can't see that and still have a rooting interest in how that conference does, then Thursday thru Sunday will be a pretty big bummer for you. As for the ACC, I doubt anyone surprises this year, but UNC Duke and BC should play to their seedings and Maryland is a favorite to upset Cal. I think UNC goes down when they meet a team with a great PG, and Duke goes down when it meets Pitt. Wake has a potential draw to get to the Final Four but they also have huge landmines in front of them in Cleveland St. and Utah (actually that whole Louisville bracket is a mess), so I won't make any prediction about them. And Clemson will probably under-perform and likely get upset. I follow college basketball more than I follow the NBA, so I'll stand by my predictions and own up if I'm completely off-base. But you should also if you think the Big 12 is going to make any noise this year.
I'll agree that the Big XII is off at the Top of the conference from the past few years. But again I'll ask who from the Big XII should not have been in the tournament, and who should they have been replaced with. The lowest seed in (A&M) has a resume profile that has pretty much never been left out of the tournament. I'm not saying that the Big XII is going to have several teams in the elite 8, but to say the big 12 is terrible and they don't deserve to have 6 in this year is ridiculous, and honestly the ACC probably isn't going to have but 1 team in the Elite 8 either. Honestly, the 12 is not top-heavy at all, but there are a good amount of solid teams in the league. And I am certainly not saying the big 12 is better than the acc, but again I am referring to you saying it is a joke that the big 12 has 6 teams in.
Texas really has no business getting to the Sweet 16, but favorable matchups make it possible. Not only do we pose as a matchup problem with Duke, we could possibly play UCLA or Villanova in the Sweet 16, both teams Texas has already beaten.
My 4: UNC Wake Villanova Memphis UNC over Memphis in title game subject to change pending injury reports
Agreed, the middle four match ups are absolutely ridiculous. As for me, I'm someone that respects teams in big conferences that have good quality teams, so I would probably consider picking Arizona (also in respect to the tremendous amount of talent that they have in Hill and Chase B.) Dayton is good. No doubts about that. I have seen them play due to the ESPN bias and I respect them as a team. West Virginia on the other hand has played some stiff competition and beaten a lot of tournament teams. I think this is a toss up, but I have to give the upper hand to WVU. Al Skinner as the BC coach is what makes me lean towards them in the USC match up. Skinner gets his teams ready for the tourney and Rice is a team leader, I will most likely go with them. Frankly, I just like Siena over tOSU because I just hate OSU. The Big Ten, outside of MSU, is overrated. Something about the *uckeyes losing in the first round makes me happy on the inside.
GO FLYERS!!! a few comments: 1. only 4 "mid-major" teams got at large bids: Dayton, Butler, BYU, Xavier thats a scary thought 2. I think you gotta remember a couple of locations, first, OSU is playing in Dayton..its basically a home game for them. Same with Villanova who is in philly. Another thing, if you have Mich St coming out of their bracket like I do in one of my early brackets online, keep in mind the final four is in detroit. 3. Is it just me or does it seem like the midwest region is loaded? such a ridiculous bracket to get through. 4. also, what in the heck is arizona doing in the tourney? i think similar things can be said for michigan, minnesota, and maryland. but really, arizona?
As a Lamar fan, without knowing the line, I'm betting SFA. I'm not impressed with Syracuse, and while I'm surprised SFA won as many games as they did, they are clearly the best Southland team, and I think that gives them a shot on beating Syracuse outright. I'd pretty low odds on 'Cuse covering much of anything.
Oklahoma State is back in the Tourney baby and ready to cause havok (again) !!! Yeah baby!!!! I think Memphis, Connecticut, Pitt and Louisville are pretty safe picks to atleast make it to the Sweet 16. But I have questions about Duke's ability to guard teams with multiple athletic, versatile guards and North Carolina's Ty Lawson injury issue. Btw, I would beware of teams like Arizona and Syracuse. Arizona might not be playing hot as of late, but with their talent and Chase Budinger's ability to shoot and run the lane they might pull off a run. Syracuse is on fire and they also have a lot of young talent.
Duke has little/no problem in the guard/forward position. We have majors problems guarding athelatic centers or bullish PF. Zoubek can't get the job done.
Duke is as tough and deep as it's been since 2002. But it's not as tough as Pitt. If you were to construct a team from the ground up designed to beat Duke, that team would be Pitt. It's a real shame that they are slated to meet in the Elite Eight (although lots of my classmates as well as people on this board seem to think Texas will knock them out, and they would be ridiculously wrong), because both teams have Final Four quality of play. In my mind the majority of the talent is concentrated in Louisville's and Pitt's brackets. You could tell that even though the committee was forced to pick Louisville as the overall one seed for winning the Big East regular season and conference tourney, the team they really selected as the #1 overall seed was UNC. Every team in that bracket is either overrated or tailor-made to match up poorly with UNC. No good point guards anywhere except Jonny Flynn, and Syracuse will find it awfully hard to maintain the emotional intensity that got them through 4.75 games in the Big East tournament.
