College Basketball

[bosawks]

No Marquette, No Marquette, No Marquette, please on the name of the late Father Raynor no Marquette!

[Minneapple]

19 hours ago, mojoween said:

I am praying to all that is holy that the only Duke infraction on that list is a $106.36 dinner at Longhorn for Wendell Carter Jr. that might not even have been paid for by that shady ass agent.

Hahahaha. They have Sean Miller on the wiretaps offering Book Richardson $100K. He had a Duke offer. What are the odds K put in a bid? I'd say pretty high. Duke is littered with the top one and dones these days; there is no way they aren't dirty. 

Edited February 24, 2018 by Minneapple

[voiceover]

Rock-freakin-chalk, Jayhawk!!

Congratulations KU on 14 straight conference titles.  Wow!! this has been waaaay more fun than the Olympics.

[xaxat]

CBS is working so hard to convince viewers that the Big Ten and MSG is such a natural connection. 

[mojoween]

Is their tournament really this week, like ending tomorrow? 

[galaxygirl76]

23 hours ago, xaxat said:

CBS is working so hard to convince viewers that the Big Ten and MSG is such a natural connection. 

I saw one of the games on tv, turned to my husband and asked him why the hell the Big Ten is playing at MSG.

[crimsongrl]

CBS, Turner receive backlash for new March Madness Selection Sunday show format

 

Quote

The networks have decided to announce all 68 NCAA Tournament teams in alphabetical order — beginning with the automatic bids, then going to the at-large bids — at the beginning of the show.

...hosts and analysts will spend the remainder of the program's two hours revealing the tournament bracket, discussing the matchups and interviewing members from teams in the tournament.

[xaxat]

2 hours ago, crimsongrl said:

The networks have decided to announce all 68 NCAA Tournament teams in alphabetical order — beginning with the automatic bids, then going to the at-large bids — at the beginning of the show.

That sounds boring as hell. There's only a handful of teams whose inclusion/exclusion provides any suspense. "Oh wow, Michigan State made it as an at large!"

Pass.

[mojoween]

That is the dumbest thing I have ever heard.  Why did they ruin something that was awesome the way it was?  They must be thinking all press is good press.

[Minneapple]

Why do they feel the need to monkey with the format? It's already fine, just leave it alone.

[mojoween]

Dan Schulman and Jay Bilas suck at calling basketball games.  They spend a fuck of a lot of time talking about everything else other than what is happening on the court.  Do their contract riders that state they can show no emotion whatsoever?

[MyAimIsTrue]

11 hours ago, mojoween said:

Dan Schulman and Jay Bilas suck at calling basketball games.

I didn't watch whatever game this was but Dan Shulman is so good at baseball that I can't imagine him sucking.

[mojoween]

They are calling the ACC tournament.  The only time I heard them get excited was when North Carolina did anything at all and then I started watching shows on the DVR.

Aim I don’t think you would recognize him.  He sounds so different calling the two sports.

[MyAimIsTrue]

I believe you, and I get it.

Last night on the NBC Sports Network I came across the A10 college basketball tournament.  Terry Gannon, who these days I only think of as announcing figure skating, was calling it and while I know basketball is his first sport I was surprised that he was really, really good.

[Minneapple]

On 3/8/2018 at 8:52 PM, mojoween said:

Dan Schulman and Jay Bilas suck at calling basketball games.  

Jay Bilas is exhausting. He never lets up on drumbeating his message. We get it, the NCAA sucks and pay the players and the NCAA sucks again. Whatever, I don’t care anymore, just tell me about the game.

Grayson Allen remains a jackass.

[mojoween]

The Selection Show hasn’t even started yet and I'm already annoyed that they are listing all 68 teams and THEN the brackets.

[woodstock]

Not a fan of revealing the teams by alphabetical order. 

[mojoween]

Me either!  Just show the brackets!

SU making it over Notre Dame was a big surprise.  And now I have to root for SU over Bobby Hurley THANKS committee.

Also I am sure the committee put Duke and Oklahoma on the same side so Trae Young and Marvin Bagley can play in the same game.

[AimingforYoko]

So who's gonna be saltier, Notre Dame or Oklahoma State?

[mojoween]

The problem I see with the Selection Show is this:

Turner Exec - “Did you see the ratings?  They were huge!”

Underling whose sole function is to monitor social media - “Well, sir, that may be the case, but the chatter online was all negative.  ALL of it.  Everyone hated it.”

Turner Exec - “Lalalala I don’t hear you!  Everyone was watching US and we are going to do it the same way next year, but LONGER.”

Because obviously the ratings are going to be great, because there were no leaks and this is the first place you could see the brackets.  I mean, I’m sure there were tons of people who waited to get the brackets online or on ESPN or whatever, but also millions and millions of people were most likely watching TBS.

[Minneapple]

Well, they did ditch the two-hour show after everyone bitched last year.

Honestly with a couple tweaks the alphabetical reveal isn't horrible. But really, just keep it the way it was. There's no real need to monkey with what works. What benefit do you get from making some new wacky bracket reveal? Answer: None. It won't bring more money or better ratings. People aren't watching for a new format. Just give 'em the seeds and send 'em off to their brackets.

[AimingforYoko]

Already a better start than last year, an OT game and Loyola hits the buzzer-beater 3 to save my bracket.

[MyAimIsTrue]

Today I read something to the effect of every team in the tournament has a chance of winning their first game except for Buffalo.

Brackets be damned, this is why I love March Madness.

[mojoween]

I fell asleep watching...something...because I was just switching channels all day as soon as one game ended so I had no idea which game I was watching when I dragged my ass off to bed.

As long as it’s not my team that gets bounced, I love the chaos.

[MyAimIsTrue]

Great quote regarding the tournament thus far:

"St. Bonaventure beats UCLA. Syracuse beats Arizona State. Buffalo beats Arizona. The Pac-12 was just taken out by New York State."

[mojoween]

While I am sad for Bobby Hurley, I live in Syracuse, my first boyfriend who I am still friends with went to UB and I ... am aware St. Bonaventure is a school, so I am all in on NY dominance.

[Minneapple]

Poor Arizona fans. They have a scandal-ridden year, their team gets bounced by a 13 seed and their two best players declare for the NBA basically the second the buzzer sounds. And they have zero incoming recruits. Ouch!

[Ohwell]

Welp.  Since my bracket is already busted to smithereens, I can just sit back and enjoy the games.

[AimingforYoko]

It finally happened. And to the overall #1 seed yet. Although if you think about it, a team like Virginia, one that has trouble scoring, is the one it would happen to.

[ketchuplover]

You ask for miracles Theo-I give you UMBC

[Pepperclove]

I guess Virginia really wanted to join Arizona in the highly exclusive 20-point upset loss club. Also, this clearly shows that the ACC is terrible and should not have any teams in the tournament (since that's what people, cough ESPN, have been saying about the PAC-12).

[xaxat]

And I thought Buffalo gave no fucks in smashing Arizona. Congrats UMBC. (Whose best known team was chess before today.)

About 6 minutes to go, there was a reaction shot of a UMBC fan. She had her hands in the air, and while I'm not a professional lip reader, I'm pretty sure she was saying something like "What is going on here?"

One of the things I like about the first round are the guys without "NBA bodies" who work their asses off to help their team to victory. The heavy 6" 8" center with a ten inch vertical leap who just carves out space under the boards and guys like number 11 for UMBC who was shorter than everyone (including coaches) in the UVA handshake line.

I miss the days when there were starts in West Coast prime time. 

[mojoween]

Holy crap, UVA, and it wasn’t even close.  The person who runs Virginia's Twitter feed was even so excited and thanked Barack Obama for picking them to win it all.

Of course I missed it because I was falling asleep in front of the SU game.

And I don’t even know what UMBC stands for.  

Edited March 17, 2018 by mojoween

[AimingforYoko]

5 minutes ago, mojoween said:

And I don’t even know what UMBC stands for.  

University of Maryland-Baltimore County.

[ebk57]

8 minutes ago, AimingforYoko said:

University of Maryland-Baltimore County.

Formerly University of Maryland-Baltimore Campus

 

I had no idea they'd changed the name years ago until this week.  I was confused for a while...

[mojoween]

10 minutes ago, ebk57 said:

Formerly University of Maryland-Baltimore Campus

 

I had no idea they'd changed the name years ago until this week.  I was confused for a while...

 

20 minutes ago, AimingforYoko said:

University of Maryland-Baltimore County.

If you had given me one million trillion guesses I would not have come up with that.

[LexieLily]

Did Virginia have a James Harden/LeBron/KD-type player lost due to injury before the tournament? Otherwise, what happened?

[Minneapple]

22 minutes ago, LexieLily said:

Did Virginia have a James Harden/LeBron/KD-type player lost due to injury before the tournament? Otherwise, what happened?

DeAndre Hunter was injured but that is no explanation for...that. Jeez.

Poor Tony. Genuinely one of the good guys. Why couldn’t this happen to that jackass Chris Mack instea

[Ohwell]

Ouch UVA, but major props to UMBC.  I'm so happy for them.  I only caught the last 15 minutes of the game but UMBC was playing like they didn't give a fuck.  I'm just sorry that it wasn't Duke who got embarrassed. 

[xaxat]

They need to give the person running the UMBC twitter account a raise. They were entertaining as hell last night.

 

[MarkHB]

I live in Maine, but did not go to Umaine. All the same, I know they're in America East and as the only D-I school in the state I'll root for them, and their conference. So, go UMBC! And good luck to the 11 seed Maine women Vs the Longhorns tonight!

Is there any conference in Division I that's as overall lowly ranked as America East? I tend to think of them as being the "low major" that lets those others be mid-majors.

Also, while I'm ranting about Maine, good luck to the Bowdoin women who are playing in the D-III championship game tonight!

[ganesh]

I guess my claim of watching the Georgetown/Princeton game in person as the best game ever is now dethroned.

Edited March 17, 2018 by ganesh

[annzeepark914]

Sheesh.  And I was doing so well for a few days.  But I had VA going all the way.  Wow.  But hey - GO UMBC!  Keep on winning.  There's nothing like an underdog team working its way up (shades of George Mason several years ago--made it to the final four despite all the sneers that they didn't belong in the tournament).  All of a sudden, this tournament got very interesting (at least to me).

[mojoween]

That’s the only problem with Cinderella (or U Must Be Cinderella, as was amusingly written on Twitter), casual fans wander away from the TV when they don’t know the teams left or their bracket they filled out in four minutes Thursday morning is busted.  And then all that’s left is the whining.

I personally love it.  IMO the first two days of the Dance are the best two days any other sport could possibly produce.  I love finishing a game and having three other channels to turn to for another game for twelve straitght hours.

Although...I do have to say, I miss the cut-ins.

Also, my friend still does brackets on paper and I forgot to make copies, so I have no idea how I'm doing.

Edited March 17, 2018 by mojoween

[Ohwell]

So Loyola-Chicago made it to the Sweet 16.  Go Sister Jean!

[ganesh]

That was a thriller, but with a foul to give and the guy gets it in the lane, foul before the shot. I think they got a little lucky that UT wasn't holding for the last shot and scored too quick.

[Calvada]

I didn't fill out a bracket and have barely watched a minute of any game.  My team isn't there this year, so I don't give a shit.  But if I had filled out a bracket I would never have picked Virginia to go all the way.  I don't have anything against Virginia, and I think Tony Bennett is a great guy and coach.  However, I would always fear that there would be something of his father in him.  Dick was also a good guy and coach, but he got so stressed, especially leading up to a big game, and I felt that sometimes he affected his players adversely.  I always wonder whether Tony has some of that in him.  Probably totally irrational on my part, I know!

Loyola getting to the Sweet 16 makes me smile, because it probably makes Bob Newhart smile.  The character Bob Hartley on The Bob Newhart Show (one of my all-time favorites) was an alum of Loyola, as is Newhart himself, and there were several references to Loyola basketball in the show - Bob getting Emily to stand in the rain for 2 hours to get tickets to the big Loyola-Marquette matchup, telling the French psychologist who was extolling the virtues of the Sorbonne that Loyola would beat the pants off them in basketball, and so on.    

[Minneapple]

14 hours ago, Calvada said:

I didn't fill out a bracket and have barely watched a minute of any game.  My team isn't there this year, so I don't give a shit.  But if I had filled out a bracket I would never have picked Virginia to go all the way.  I don't have anything against Virginia, and I think Tony Bennett is a great guy and coach.  However, I would always fear that there would be something of his father in him.  Dick was also a good guy and coach, but he got so stressed, especially leading up to a big game, and I felt that sometimes he affected his players adversely.  I always wonder whether Tony has some of that in him.  Probably totally irrational on my part, I know!

 

Dick Bennett has said he can't watch Virginia games live because he gets so stressed out. I rememeber when Dick was coaching Wisconsin, I always used to think he was going to have a heart attack on the sideline. Or kill a referee. Tony seems calmer, though.

When the pack line defense is good, it is good...but when the offense is bad it is horrid. We lost to Southwest Missouri State in the 1999 tournament and scored 32 points. I had, like, PTSD flashbacks to that game during Virginia's loss. But then we had the 2000 Final Four run and I don't think I've ever seen a team play finer defense than I did during that run. Stromile Swift and Jabari Smith had no clue.

GREAT win for Michigan last night, an amazing game and a buzzer-beater no less. 

[AimingforYoko]

Safe to say 2018 will go down as Annus Horribilis in East Lansing.

Edited March 18, 2018 by AimingforYoko

[ganesh]

Did anyone know that Syracuse fouls when they're up by 3? Because they only told me 75 times in 4 seconds. I don't have anyone in this fight, but MSU just didn't play well. They kept passing up open mid range looks, and just didn't execute offensively. 

Who told all the announcers this year that if someone makes a bank shot that they have to say he "used the window." It's stupid and I hate it.