I would rank Gonzaga in the top 20-25. I just don’t see them being an elite team at all. I hear they are elite but I watched them a few times and I thought they were pretty good but no way shape or form would I say they are top 4. It actually seems crazy to me. But, who knows (?) I am excited to see the tournament play out…
Watching ESPNU and the Experts, all four analysts took Michigan over Ok St. All four also picked Louisville to beat us.
Yea I think people are underestimating this zags team due to the past results. This isn’t your normal zag squad. Remember goss , Williams , and Mathews were all the best or 2nd best players at their respective schools before coming to the zags. Collins and the French kid are really nice bench bigs. They’d start on a lot of schools.
Add on Perkins and melson who both are starting caliber points ( I think Perkins did start last year) and karnowski and that is a very well balanced team. They also have a really nice bracket for once.
Their weakness to me is they feed karnowski too much. They have so many weapons and balance That it makes no sense pounding him relentlessly. They need to shoot more threes or let their guards work. If they lose that will be why. That and few s very overrated as an in game cosch imo. Too often I’ve seen him not get everything his players had out of them and wasted their talent/ chances
Ville is a real tough draw for us.
Only thing is if we’re gonna go with Kenpom vs. Ok St, we’re also only -3 against Louisville according to it.
Texas was not the problem. It’s the teams in the 200-300 range that always kill us
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How was Minny over Vandy any better than our beating SMU and Marquette?
It’s not. It’s worse.
This whole bracket was crap. Maybe the worst ever by a committee. Based on what I heard from Hollis and other second hand trickles, it sounds like they had their bracket set several days back and just moved teams a place here or there. Which is just completely ridiculous.
I knew when I heard before the tournaments(big10, acc,sec, etc) started that they had 32 teams set, that there were gonna be seed issues. Any time you place value on any resume that early creates a huge problem. Not that those teams would be bounced from the tourney but that other teams not included in those 32 (i.e. Michigan) would play four games to add to their resume. Which made their profile much more deserving of a higher seed.
Conference record is supposed to be irrelevant. You look at every game individually and who the team beat and who they lost to. But this committee seems to have just mailed it in on the effort portion of actually watching and evaluating these teams from game 1 to game 30-whatever.
And that falls directly on the shoulders of the chair Hollis. Honestly they should have replaced him as soon as all the msu stuff popped up. He has bigger stuff to deal with than this and someone should have seen these issues coming. Remember when they were gonna release the top 4 seedlines each week? Yea that got canceled immediately after msu’s entire athletic department took a crap on oversight. The guy was in way over his head and it affected the entire committee and how they half-assed this seeding.
Nothing can be done about it now but just wish the kids got what they actually deserved and earned.
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I don’t think Louisville is a bad draw for us. They have just in the last week lost to wake forest and wakes big guy destroyed them. Yes he’s good but he’s a lost only player Louisville has two guards mitchel/snider who shoot a lot and not a good percentage. Their game at Virginia two weeks ago where they lost by 16 and scored 56 points, vj king went off for 25 and they still got pounded. We can beat them. We’ve been playing great for two months and unless we stumble I feel the sweet 16 is very doable. Their 7’ starting center averages 4 rebounds a game. I think it’s a good matchup for us truthfully. We have to contain jawan Evans and ok state and if we do that I feel good about getting to the sweet 16.
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Honestly besides are seeding smu and Villanova somehow getting the hardest bracket I thought it was better then years past. Usually it’s really messed up. Minny and Maryland were too high, U.S. And wiscy too low.
We can beat anyone and I truly mean that if we play at our best bit that said I think the ville is one of only a few teams that worries me. Early on I didn’t care for them but I started to really look at then over the last month. Their battle tested, tons of nice wins.
Their not elite shooters but they can shoot. Snyder and Mitchell have nice strokes. Even adel ( I think that’s his name) can shoot it.
They are very long and athletic and very deep. Spaulding, mathiang, Mahmoud and jones are some of the only bigs in the country who are agile enough to guard are bigs and p n r on the outside. They also rebound well and guard the rim well. The only positive is only Mahmoud really has nice post moves. Mathiang sometimes and Spaulding is mostly an athlete.
I think we could beat them but there is no room for error and we have to hope they don’t shoot that well. If for some reason their shooting well that will be s tough out. Honestly I think the ville could go final four. Even after they lost to duke the other night I got the feeling they could beat duke on most nights.
It’s frustrating cause their one team that matches up well defensively with us. Irving will really struggle driving and scoring at the rim on this team and adel is a rangy quick defender for him.
Snider and Mitchell shoot a combined 40% from the field. They score but they also shoot a bunch and I’ve watched games where those two have shot them out of games.
Louisville JUST lost at wake forest who is in the play in game. The team we have become, sweet 16 is very doable.
Stylistically were closest to Notre dame and the Irish split with them. They had a really tough time with Virginia this year each time. Obviously the best strategy is don’t turn it over, slow it down, and force them to shoot from the outside.
Yhis years tourney is really wide open imo. I don’t think nova is unstoppable as they look. im very intrigued with a matchup between them and the Badgers. I think Wisconsin could cause them problems much like Virginia.
The committee loves to pair interesting style mstchups for sure. West va could be dangerous but Notre Dame is one team the press won’t bother ha. I loved Oregon but the Boucher injury is devastating. I think the Ducks had a chance to do something big. Their still very good but idk. They still scared zona
I do think Louisville is a bad draw for Michigan. I just look at in terms of how closely teams correlate to teams Michigan has recently played. And I think Louisville is a better version of Minnesota. They attack downhill relentlessly and can crash the offensive glass. Obviously none of the two’d are ideal but I think it will take a big effort from the guards/wings to contain the dribble and the bigs to keep them off the glass.
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Much better then minny.
So many good teams. This was the hardest bracket to fill out in recent memory for me. I could see so many scenarios. Usually I have a firm idea of who will be in the final four/ win it. This year I could see anything occurring.
I just had one bracket with no one seed. This never occurs though. Then I had one with three acc teams.
Nova, Unc, Duke, ville, Kansas, ucla, Kentucky, zona, gonzaga all could do it. Then if you told me nd, Michigan, Purdue, fla, Oregon, west va, or smu made it I wouldn’t be shocked. Even Iowa st looks great. Fla st has a ton of good wins. Just so much talent in college this year and spread out well. Should be really fun.
One thing I did notice though is I don’t see many low seed upsets going far this year. Too much talent up top.
Overall, regarding the bracket, I will admit I was 100% wrong on this as well. I really thought the committee was moving away from RPI a little more and looking at other data to make their decisions.
Since that was the case, I truly thought we’d get a higher seed than we anticipated. It’s obvious they just weighed RPI and very little else.
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Trying to figure how MN got to be #18 on the s-curve? Look at the committee chair's employee's ranking system. https://t.co/pJAAoka7Az
— Bart T🏀rvik (@totally_t_bomb) March 13, 2017
I’ve looked back and forth between Michigan and Minnesota like 20 times and the graphics on my screen slowly start to blur into Hollis giving me the finger; so weird.
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