2016 NCAA tournament discussion thread

T1000

Legend
Real tournament starts today at 12 duke vs unc Wilmington. Best postseason in sports by far
 

dlk

Hall of Fame
I'll go with who I've gone with last ten years: Michigan State. Would like to see any Indiana school win; no chance. So realistic Cinderella would be Villanova, if you could call them underdogs, circa. 1985, not an 8 seed however. My basketball mind tells me Kansas, I love Perry Ellis. Virginia would be cool.
 

stringertom

Bionic Poster
Have your sunglasses ready for the anticipated Sweet 16 matchup between Baylor and Oregon...neon unis will scream at your retinas!

Michigan State Sparties FTW with Valentine MOP.
 

T1000

Legend
Homer pick

Uconn over Oklahoma
Kentucky over Michigan st
Uconn over Kentucky 63-57

Non homer pick replace uconn with Kansas
 

Kevin T

Hall of Fame
U of Kentucky grad and fan, UNC fan growing up and home state is VA and worked at UVA a few years, so soft spot for the Cavs. If UNC continues to play well, I just can't see UK taking them out. My head says UNC to win it all but my heart is going with UVA. It's been a LOOOOONG time since the glory days of Ralph Sampson, Othell Wilson, Ricky Stokes, Jeff Lamp, et al. I would love to see the Cavs pull it out. My Final Four:

UNC
UVA
KU
Oklahoma

I had a hard time putting OK and KU in the Final Four (and I'm still not convinced it will happen) but I have only 1 sheet of integrity and I had to roll the dice. Kansas can't choke every year, can they? :)
 
How the hell is Syracuse in this tournament let alone as a 10th seed? (of course luck being what it is, now they'll upset a much more deserving Dayton).:oops:

How does Seton Hall beat two top 5 teams back-to-back (Villanova and Xavier), win the Big East tourny and then have to go out to Denver as a #6 seed to play Gonzaga?

How (and why) was Witchata State in the "play-in" game? Put them up against a non-deserving team (e.g. Syracuse, Michigan) and it'd be lights out.

Monmouth and San Diego State deserved better.

North Carolina: underachieving team all year (must've been having to go to class) was #1 pre-season ranked and is on paper the best team. Looks like either them, Mich. St. or Kansas but nobody's looked invincible over the course of the regular season. Stating the obvious: you're either hot NOW or you're not.
 

tdhawks

Professional
Final Four:
Iowa
Northern Iowa
Iowa State
Weber State

Iowa beats Iowa State in the finals 99-66.

I like your style. State is having their way with Iona right now. I think UNI stands a decent chance with TX. Iowa, as much as I'd love to see them get back to their early season form, I just don't see them doing it. Other than Jok and Uthoff, no one has stepped up lately. They need their bench to step up and score some points or they will be headed home early. It's like the 2014 season all over again with the collapse.
 

Bluefan75

Professional
How the hell is Syracuse in this tournament let alone as a 10th seed? (of course luck being what it is, now they'll upset a much more deserving Dayton).:oops:

How does Seton Hall beat two top 5 teams back-to-back (Villanova and Xavier), win the Big East tourny and then have to go out to Denver as a #6 seed to play Gonzaga?

How (and why) was Witchata State in the "play-in" game? Put them up against a non-deserving team (e.g. Syracuse, Michigan) and it'd be lights out.

Monmouth and San Diego State deserved better.

North Carolina: underachieving team all year (must've been having to go to class) was #1 pre-season ranked and is on paper the best team. Looks like either them, Mich. St. or Kansas but nobody's looked invincible over the course of the regular season. Stating the obvious: you're either hot NOW or you're not.


The committee seeds with the mind of paving a pre-selected Cinderella team's path to the sweet 16, and also making it so that the TV networks who pay huge bucks have "cool" matchups on the weekend. No way Kentucky and Indiana should meet in the second round(and I'm not saying historically-the teams this season are much better than that.) Syracuse gets in. Duke gets a 4 seed. Really?
 

T1000

Legend
13/16 so far and only lost one sweet sixteen team (thanks Purdue don't give the ball to Hammons when he's your best player)
 

Kevin T

Hall of Fame
14/16 yesterday, missed on Baylor and Seton Hall. I'll never pick Baylor in the tourney again. They killed my bracket last year. :) Gonzaga is always solid come tourney time but I thought Seton Hall's tough Big East season and inside play would pull them through. Wichita St looked very good against a pretty decent AZ squad. I have Miami beating them in the next round but not so sure now. Looking forward to Kentucky vs Indiana tomorrow.
 

stringertom

Bionic Poster
13/16 so far and only lost one sweet sixteen team (thanks Purdue don't give the ball to Hammons when he's your best player)
Very nice! Mike Greenberg was crowing about a 15/16 start for his brackets, his lone stumble being the Purdue loss. Nailing all the #8/#9 matchups is impressive or just plain luck??? The USC defensive lapse on the inbounds play paved the way for that sweep by him.
 

T1000

Legend
14/16 yesterday, missed on Baylor and Seton Hall. I'll never pick Baylor in the tourney again. They killed my bracket last year. :) Gonzaga is always solid come tourney time but I thought Seton Hall's tough Big East season and inside play would pull them through. Wichita St looked very good against a pretty decent AZ squad. I have Miami beating them in the next round but not so sure now. Looking forward to Kentucky vs Indiana tomorrow.

Uconn Wichita st elite 8 matchup so that'll either win me all my pools or lose me a lot of money lol
 

r2473

G.O.A.T.
How the hell is Syracuse in this tournament let alone as a 10th seed? (of course luck being what it is, now they'll upset a much more deserving Dayton).:oops:
mixedgifs3.gif
 

Kevin T

Hall of Fame
Uconn Wichita st elite 8 matchup so that'll either win me all my pools or lose me a lot of money lol

I hear you. :)

So how many of you had he Spartans winning it all? :) Luckily, not me. Per the Sicilian in 'The Princess Bride', you never 1. Start a land war in Asia and 2. pick the Big 10 when a big game is on the line. (sorry r2) :)

I had the Spartans losing to UVA in the Elite 8, so no fatal damage in my office pool. Three losses already today (Cal, Dayton, Mich St). This seems to be a theme in my annual March bracket...great first day and the second day brings me back to Earth.
 

T1000

Legend
in one of my pools with about 500 people in it 1/3 had msu winning it all

just need kansas and unc to lose and that'll take care of 95% of them
 

stringertom

Bionic Poster
Sparty Nation used up all their luck beating Michigan on the gridiron.

Too late to do this for this tourney but I'll try to remember to start a Sudden Death pool for all of us next year.
 

T1000

Legend
Lol day 2 killed me again. Left side would've been perfect if temple and South Dakota didn't choke

laHWNRU.jpg
 

stringertom

Bionic Poster
Turns out smug Calipari was right when stating UK shouldn't have been seeded fourth. The committee was generous.
 

Bluefan75

Professional
Turns out smug Calipari was right when stating UK shouldn't have been seeded fourth. The committee was generous.

Um, no. Because Indiana was much better than a 5 seed. This is all about the shenanigans the committee was doing to get matchups on the weekend.

I dislike Calipari as much as the next guy(violations find him, I can think of several coaches who would have won 5 titles with the talent he has had....), but this was not a case of Kentucky being seeded incorrectly. It's a case of Indiana being seeded wrong.
 

Nostradamus

Bionic Poster
is there a corruption in NCAA tourmment as well ?? like throwing a game because some mobster offer big money to the coach and something like that ?
 

Kevin T

Hall of Fame
Tom Crean certainly seems to have Cal's number the last few years. Tight all game long but IU made the plays and were better coached at crunch time. That's always been a knock on Cal-poor game management in crunch time. Being in different conferences, I don't think people outside of Indiana and Kentucky realize what a big rivalry this is.

The left side of my bracket is nice and shiny, a perfect 8/8 in the South and West. The right side? Yuck...2/8. I'm really surprised by Xavier and Mich St. going out.
 

T1000

Legend
Tom Crean certainly seems to have Cal's number the last few years. Tight all game long but IU made the plays and were better coached at crunch time. That's always been a knock on Cal-poor game management in crunch time. Being in different conferences, I don't think people outside of Indiana and Kentucky realize what a big rivalry this is.

The left side of my bracket is nice and shiny, a perfect 8/8 in the South and West. The right side? Yuck...2/8. I'm really surprised by Xavier and Mich St. going out.

Bottom left is completely perfect haven't missed anything in the first two rounds

Top left and the whole right side I see a lot of red and little to no green lmao. Just gonan block those three sections out and pretend they don't exist
 

r2473

G.O.A.T.
See, that's what you get for giving ol' Kev the business! UK goes down, then your beloved Hawkeyes go down, too. Karma! :)
I'll take full responsibility for Iowa's loss. Just don't make me responsible for what happened to Northern Iowa.

Out of 192 possible at the start, I still have 167 possible points. 7 of my Final 8 are still alive (I bet you can guess which one I don't have). That might sound good, except I just picked all top seeds. My only upsets were having Michigan State and Xavier losing. My final 4 is all #1 seeds. Only 3 of us picked North Carolina as Champion. If they win, I win. If not, I don't. Nearly everyone picked either Michigan State or Kansas.
 

r2473

G.O.A.T.
Down year for the ACC...only 6 teams left in the Sweet 16!:eek:
And all 6 have a good shot of advancing to the next round. Could basically be the ACC tournament plus Big 12 Oklahoma and Kansas. Big 10 has 3 teams, but they are all weak.
 

Kevin T

Hall of Fame
And all 6 have a good shot of advancing to the next round. Could basically be the ACC tournament plus Big 12 Oklahoma and Kansas. Big 10 has 3 teams, but they are all weak.

Our brackets sound pretty similar, though I had Xavier and Mich St in the Elite 8, so I'll get 6/8 max. Same as your pool, nearly everyone picked Mich St, Kansas and UNC. I'm the lone person to pick UVA to win it all.

As for the ACC, they look fantastic. A record 6 teams in the Sweet Sixteen and there's a very real chance they could get all four Final Four slots. UNC and UVA would be chalk and history knows how Coach K and Duke perform in the tournament. They could easily beat Oregon and Oklahoma. Miami has a slightly tougher road but they really impressed me over the weekend. Wichita St is no joke and they handled them well in crunch time.
 

Bluefan75

Professional
is there a corruption in NCAA tourmment as well ?? like throwing a game because some mobster offer big money to the coach and something like that ?

No, not in the tournament, I don't think. For one there's too much of a spotlight. It's no different than the match-fixing in tennis. First look to do it in obscure places. You'd do it in regular season games, probably non-conference so there is less of a baseline to compare against. And you would have to really pay up or have serious leverage on someone to get them to throw a game. Point shaving is what would be happening.

I've stated already I believe the corruption in this tournament happens well above the teams....
 

r2473

G.O.A.T.
4 for 4 last night. I have 3 of the 4 teams tonight.

But for me, the pool boils down to, if North Carolina wins it all, I win. If they lose, I'll probably still win, provided Kansas doesn't win it all. I have Kansas in the finals losing to North Carolina.

I want Iowa State to win it all (but picked Virginia in the pool for tonight's game).
 

West Coast Ace

G.O.A.T.
Ha ha! Duke and Coach Ratface lost last night. And were their usual poor sports. Ratface got caught lying about telling the Oregon kid not to showboat.
 

dlk

Hall of Fame
Wow, I guess Syracuse has proved doubters wrong. I'm pulling for ND, but UNC is playing so good...
 
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