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36 minutes ago, mojoween said:

I don’t know if this is a result of the transfer portal or what, but with the exception of a few blowout games, this has been the best tourney I can remember watching, except for the five that Duke won.

Oh... you had me right up until the end...  😄

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48 minutes ago, AimingforYoko said:

Jay Bilas said after the second round that UConn was the best team in the tournament. It's definitely looking that way right now.

Bleargh.

I’ve hated UConn for about 40 years and thought maybe that hatred might have lessened with the addition of Danny Hurley.  It hasn’t.

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1 minute ago, twoods said:

UConn is a beast- why in the world were they the 4th best team in their bracket? 

Probably because they were only 4th in the Big East. (Behind Marquette, Xavier and another possible FF team: Creighton)

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15 minutes ago, mojoween said:

I wonder if they are going to do a retrospective for Jim Nantz next Monday.  I do love Ian Eagle, but the tourney without Nantz, after all this time, is going to be very weird.

If they do, I think it'll be on Saturday (during their "25-hour pregame show") as CBS has the action from end city this year.  Not much time before the Championship tip.

BTW, ITA about Nantz (and Eagle) with the transition.  End of an era

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Hearing “The Final Countdown” before the tip of the second game gave me PTSD flashbacks to the 1987 final, when that song was relatively new and played by our radio stations all day before the game started and I had gotten the tape as a birthday gift the previous October, and then Keith Smart drove a dagger directly into my heart.

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21 hours ago, mojoween said:

I don’t know if this is a result of the transfer portal or what, but with the exception of a few blowout games, this has been the best tourney I can remember watching, except for the five that Duke won.

Agree!  Logic would tell me that the bigger, more "expected" schools would benefit from the tp, but I'm not really a student of any of it.

I tend to be an underdog rooter, so I'm loving it!

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Now the above?  Is a tournament first.  Unless it isn't but it should be unprecedented since seeding began, and 6 years afterwards when a field of 64 was the norm (modern).

 

Final Four Opening Lines:


SDSU favored over FAU by 1.5 (Over/Under of 131.5)
Connecticut favored over Miami by 5.5 (Over/Under of 149.5)


First game, which tips off at 6:09 Eastern on April Fools Day on CBS, sounds accurate with San Diego State being a slight favorite.  As mentioned, Miami is a significant underdog in that second game, which starts around 8:49 on the same day & channel, or at a reasonable time following the first game.

UCONN has blown out each one of their opponents.  It's about a 22.5 margin of victory.  Miami is peaking too, so it'll be tough to figure out things.  San Diego State has a great defense, but that game is even more difficult to figure out.

While there are a couple teams I'd rather see win over others, I'm okay with anyone winning.  It's not "star studded" like last year, so this year is probably more refreshing & different

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The focus on the foul at the end of San Diego State / Creighton by the basketball heads with a mic is so stupid.  It *was* a foul.  Yes, the stakes were higher yesterday, but that was a foul in November and it was a foul in March.

How many times has a game ended on a foul?  A billion.

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1 hour ago, mojoween said:

The focus on the foul at the end of San Diego State / Creighton by the basketball heads with a mic is so stupid.  It *was* a foul.  Yes, the stakes were higher yesterday, but that was a foul in November and it was a foul in March.

How many times has a game ended on a foul?  A billion.

This is no different than Super Bowl LVII.  In both cases, the game ended in an unpopular way that helped aid someone else, and despite the whining from several people, the officials did the correct thing in both cases.

I understand the concern for letting the players play, and in both games, they really didn't call much if not anything.  So when it was called, I guess it was a surprise as the refs operated in a way opposite of what they did throughout the game.

At the end of the day, what happened was legal, and once again, do not put yourself in a position where someone else "determines the game"

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All of the “it shouldn’t have been called” are stupid shits. He was going up for a game winner and the other player was grabbing his jersey which alters the shot. I’m so sick of the social media refs.

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I feel badly for LSU and Virginia Tech because they have been treated like a complete afterthought.  It’s like whoever wins tonight is going to get a pat on the head and a “thanks for coming.”

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(edited)

On Friday morning & in response to mojoween, I had every intention of posting about the typical jinx when it came to the above (LSU & Virginia Tech playing for second place).

I didn't get around to it before Iowa & South Carolina tipped off, but the "thanks for coming" thing could have also been a reference to how LSU (or V Tech had they won) would also lose to Caitlin Clark and The Hawkeyes.

No surprise, IMO.  Dawn Staley and company might not truly rank this year as a successful one based off of one's standards, but this is a story I've seen before several times (Kentucky & UNLV on the men's side, and even Connecticut on the women's side when they didn't go the distance before ending one of their historic record streaks)

Edited by Carey
Edited for tags
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It appears that the lines and the like for the second game have not moved much if at all since their release last weekend.  Maybe they did, and if so they’re right back to where they were originally.  San Diego State is now a 2.5 favorite, up a point from the weekend.

 

I’m going to go with San Diego State and Connecticut to advance to Monday’s National Championship Game.  My pick of UCONN to win the Tournament Final isn’t official, but I’d pick them to win their fifth title in the past 28 years if I had to.  Maybe they’ll lose to Miami, and given the history of sports, the games have to be played in order to produce a result.  Sometimes the result isn’t what was expected.

 

I’ll pick SDSU to cover the 2.5 as well, and the over in FAU/SDSU.  I think they’ll have to produce some offense and in doing so with a victory, that might help the final combined score to surpass that 131.5.

 

Miami/UCONN, the obvious second game, is one I’d hedge just to be petty, but I do think Connecticut will win by more than 6.  It could still be a competitive game, with the 2014 NCAA champions pulling away at the end.  I think Connecticut is undefeated against schools outside the Big East.  Finally, I think there definitely will be 150 combined points scored, and NO!  I don’t expect UCONN to get to 150+ by themselves.  Jordan Hawkins’ status changed nothing in terms of who’s expected to win, but it’s worth noting
 

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Holy Hell, what a crazy tournament this has been! I’ve never seen a more bizarre tourney, and it continues tonight - FAU led the whole game but SDSU hung around and won on a buzzer beater! I’m disappointed - I was hoping for an FAU/Miami - all Florida final game.

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(edited)

FAU’s play in the last five minutes was very disappointing; Dusty should have called timeout well before he did.  Eight offensive boards in two minutes is seven too many.

Edited by mojoween
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On 3/31/2023 at 6:00 AM, mojoween said:

I feel badly for LSU and Virginia Tech because they have been treated like a complete afterthought.  It’s like whoever wins tonight is going to get a pat on the head and a “thanks for coming.”

I guess the lesson is to never underestimate the "no one believed in us" and "we've been disrespected" aspect.

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I’m going to go with Connecticut for the win.  Plus, I have them covering the 7.5 spread.  I don’t think I’ll make the mistake that I did for the football NC game where I thought TCU would not lose by so much.  However, I do think San Diego State can make things interesting.  I also see UCONN putting them away midway through the first half.

I feel like SDSU will do enough not to lose by double digits like everyone else did against UCONN.  It is still possible that SDSU could win outright; otherwise the game would’ve been cancelled.  Anyway, feels like SDSU will lose by at least 8-9 points, but given the teams, I think the under hits for sure.  That is, unless Connecticut gets to the over 132.5 total on their own

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I’m already resentful of how tired I am going to be tomorrow because I am going to (do my best to) stay up until the end.  9:20 tip is UNREASONABLE.

But I want to see Nantz’s goodbye.  *Sniffle* 

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19 minutes ago, mojoween said:

I’m already resentful of how tired I am going to be tomorrow because I am going to (do my best to) stay up until the end.  9:20 tip is UNREASONABLE.

But I want to see Nantz’s goodbye.  *Sniffle* 

I am seriously considering retirement within the next year and I told a friend a couple days ago that I will finally be able to watch all the sporting events I've missed because they end so late at night.  NCAA championship game, World Series games, NBA finals, Sunday Night Football, and the rest.  If one of my teams is involved, of course I stay up, paying the price for the late night(s), but it is really difficult to be a casual sports fan when the alarm goes at 5:00 a.m. 

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Five for 5 for the UConn Huskies, and all of their titles within the past quarter century!

Definite hats off to San Diego State.  Their defense & style of play was worth it for me!

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I did not make it to the end.

As a hardcore Duke fan and Syracuse supporter, UConn has been the bane of my existence for almost 30 years (I regaled the hubby this morning with sad stories from 1999 and 2004.  He didn’t care).  Not even the Hurley connection changes that.  Also all of the Huskies games this tourney were boring.

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Let's hope the men can avoid the utter stupidity that's engulfed the women's side.  From the ludicrous overreaction to Reese taunting Clark (someone who loves taunting her opponents too, by the way) to Jill Biden suggesting that Iowa should also get a White House invite.  LSU won, they are the only ones who should be invited.  And it's not like Reese punched Clark (which is something that did happen earlier in the tournament after the Memphis/Bowling Green game).

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I don’t understand why these players are not getting technical fouls for taunting when this is happening during the game. Is it that the officials don’t know what the gesture means so don’t realize it is a taunt?  Maybe they need to have a 14-year-old kid train the officials on gestures on an annual basis. 

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If that's the case (officials not knowing what is or isn't taunting), then they're not doing a very good job.  They might want to take a page out of football where they're better safe than sorry.  Trend toward the side of caution; maybe a shrug or something similar is fair enough.  Anything else needs to be called.  They call a lot of other stuff (especially in the heat of the moment).  Stuff like scoreboard pointing should be an easy call.  Just play the game; all that counts is the end result.

Speaking of which, the White House might want to consider bringing South Carolina for a visit.  Other than that, I'll pass on Iowa.  What happens has no effect on my life, but I agree that only LSU needs to go.  Maybe I need to read into it, but it Biden extending the invite to both LSU and Iowa might have been public, live way for both sides to come together & make peace.  If so, it's a nice gesture, I suppose, but not necessary when you can praise the opponent (Iowa) publicly without the Hawkeyes needing to be there.

Now, if San Diego State gets an invite, I think that might be fair.  I'm not sure about whether TCU or Philadelphia (both in football & baseball) invited (or if they even hosted Georgia, Houston, and Kansas City, but if the runners-up are starting to attend, then at least that's consistent (even if I don't agree).  Being the champions has to mean something, especially with all of the glory that comes with winning

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3 hours ago, Calvada said:

I don’t understand why these players are not getting technical fouls for taunting when this is happening during the game. Is it that the officials don’t know what the gesture means so don’t realize it is a taunt?  Maybe they need to have a 14-year-old kid train the officials on gestures on an annual basis. 

I agree, they should get technical fouls.  And they don't realize how utterly stupid they look.  

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2 hours ago, Carey said:

If so, it's a nice gesture, I suppose, but not necessary when you can praise the opponent (Iowa) publicly without the Hawkeyes needing to be there.

Only the winning team should go to the White House.  That's an honor reserved for them.  Thing is, we're living in a time where everybody gets a trophy, so I'm not surprised by the "participation invitation" at all.  Sigh.

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No matter where you're at, from the office to an announcing booth, and from a public venue to the privacy of your own home, saying nothing at all over something that has consequences is the correct call 11 times out of ten.

All the people I've looked up to & respected (parents, teachers, bosses, etc) have often made mention to a couple of things: "Don't saying anything if you don't have anything nice to say."  Plus, don't say (or do) anything that you'd pay for even when you're not in the public eye.

I should be surprised that people error with this stuff as we move forward into the future, but I'm not.  The fact is, there's always someone watching, at least one individual.  IMO, the one that matters the most.

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