March Madness 2017

Zags got their #1 West bracket seed. Instead of the expected Oregon in the #2, it is Arizona, a team they already beat. SMC got a #7 seed, also in the West bracket.

The other #1 seeds are Kansas, Villanova and North Carolina. Interestingly, not all #1 seeds won their conference tournament. KU lost in the Big 12 quarterfinals. And UNC lost in the ACC semifinals (to Duke, yuck). Defending champ 'Nova did roll through the Big East.

The #2 seeds are Arizona, Louisville, Duke and Kentucky. Quite a blue-blood line, there.

The #3 seeds are Oregon, Florida St, UCLA and Baylor. And the #4 seeds are West Virginia, Purdue, Butler and Florida.

Somewhere in the top 16 is your likely Final Four, and almost assuredly your 2017 champ.

Well, with this edition of March Sadness, I'm sure we all know who I am rooting for. If you want to hop on the bandwagon, let me give you some information.

This is the first time since 2004 that South Carolina has gone to the tournament. Like UP, South Carolina has never won a game in the Big Dance. Far from a traditional basketball school. Their first game is luckily in Greenville, SC (I might go!) against former UP AD Larry Williams' former employer in Marquette.

Head coach is Frank Martin, who can be an angry man, but has calmed himself down a bit. He used to coach at K-State where he had Michael Beasley drafted by the NBA. I can hear him yelling at players in practice through the walls of my office building, which doubles as our basketball practice facility.

Best player is senior and SEC Player of the Year Sindarius Thornwell. He will be drafted in the NBA. He has single handedly willed SC to several victories this year. Real "put the team on my back" type of player.

Next best guys are going to be PJ Dozier (who is also rumored to maybe declare this year, but I doubt it), Duane Notice, Justin McKie, Maik Kotsar (our big Estonian who reminds me of guys UP used to get, but this guy is good), Chris Silva, and Hassani Gravett.

Good luck to whomever you choose to root for!

Best player is senior and SEC Player of the Year Sindarius Thornwell.

Quite the name. Sounds like a Harry Potter character. Good luck to the Gamecocks. Please beat Marquette.

Maybe worth mentioning: Coach Reveno's new squad, Georgia Tech, made the NIT. That's closer to the tournament than we ever got. I would be ecstatic if we made the NIT let alone the NCAA Tournament.

How can you not cheer for a team in purple with no appearances in the NCAA tournament until this year?

Go Northwestern!

ESPN types all bemoaning Syracuse being left out. 18-14 overall. 10-8 in the ACC. Tied for 7th place. Lost 5 of their last 7 games. Losses to bad teams. No reason to put them in the tournament except East Coast Bias. Good move by the selection committee.

As a first-time serious follower, I didn't realize these games are so early, yo. in hawaii at least

up7587 wrote:ESPN types all bemoaning Syracuse being left out.  18-14 overall. 10-8 in the ACC. Tied for 7th place.  Lost 5 of their last 7 games.  Losses to bad teams.  No reason to put them in the tournament except East Coast Bias.  Good move by the selection committee.

Probably not so much ESPN as that Vitale guy who is doing the complaining. (I have to mute the TV when he or Bill Walton are doing a broadcast).

I watch way too much basketball, and I've seen Syracuse on multiple occasions, and the only way they'd be deserving of a bid is if about half the automatic qualifier teams were not in the tournament.

Good to see two teams from the West (Gonzaga and Arizona) as the #1 and #2 seed in the West Region for a change....apparently the first time since 1991 that has happened. They'll play in Salt Lake City this weekend, and unless GU repeats its failure last time it was a #1 seed and lost in Salt Lake City in the round of 32 (to eventual Final Four team Wichita St.), they will head to San Jose for a head-to-head meeting.

GU beat UA by 7 points in the Staples Center in early December, but I'm going with UA this time.  The Wildcats didn't have super-sophomore Alonzo Trier for that game (suspended for 19 games for testing positive for PED), and since his return on January 20th, UA has gone 13-2 including Pac-12 Tournament wins over UCLA and UO, the two teams they lost to after Trier's return.

I've overnighted in Spokane many times and don't find it to be quite the economically depressed hellhole that the London based Guardian describes in this article....but apparently Gonzaga basketball is the only thing that keeps its residents from jumping from the downtown bridges..

How Gonzaga basketball became the last hope for the struggling city of Spokane:

https://www.theguardian.com/sport/2017/mar/14/gonzaga-basketball-march-madness-spokane-last-hope

The article makes it sound as if Spokane is straight out of a "Mad Max" movie, but here at least 3 things in Spokane's defense:
1. I've never known 100-degree heat in May, but I'm told it did once reach 95 degrees in 1928. I've don't even recall it being 80 degrees until about mid-June, and even then it is comfortable.
2. I've wandered around the carousel described in the article, and it was not built in 1974 as the article states, but back around 1910....so one should expect some disrepair, but when I was there in 2016 it was being restored.
3. Finally the article states the city taxpayers, despite their struggles, ponied-up $25 million for the McCarthey Athletic Center....if that were true, it would add a whole new meaning to the Jesuit influence in Spokane.

So, in other words, fake news?

In some March not-quite-Madness, BYU got a #3 seed to the NIT, and played #6 UT-Arlington, the only team besides GU to beat SMC. The Mavericks must like playing WCC teams; they beat BYU 105-89 at the Marriott Center. BYU shot 59% in the 1st half, with Mika getting 23, and still trailed by 7, 62-55! That's some NBA All-star quality defense. First black eye for the conference.

In my first bracket miss, ND beat Princeton 60-58.  After ND missed a FT with 10 seconds left, Princeton had a shot to win down one.  They took a 3P, when a 2P would of won, and missed it.  A final ND FT made the final score.

up7587 wrote:UT-Arlington

Not quite NCAA March Madness™, but UT-Arlington won the men's college championship in wheelchair basketball this year. Alabama won on the women's side. I only learned about this adapted college championships a few days ago! Basketball is sponsored by the National Wheelchair Basketball Association.

GU played a terrible first half, shooting 31% (14% on 3Ps) and 54% from the FT line.  Lead SD St by 4, 26-22.

Edit: absolutely no panic on the GU board.

Vanderbilt is supposed to be the Harvard of the South. Up one with 14 seconds remaining, they make a deliberate foul on Northwestern's best FT shooter. Guess the guy thought they were down. After the FTs were made, they were down one, and brought the ball up court. 14 seconds is plenty of time to run a play, so they launched an NBA+ length 3P attempt instead. No chance to draw a foul, and a very low percentage shot. So they squandered a nice comeback, and NU wins the first tournament game they ever play.

up7587 wrote:GU played a terrible first half, shooting 31% (14% on 3Ps) and 54% from the FT line.  Lead SD St by 4, 26-22.

Edit: absolutely no panic on the GU board.  

They looked every bit as good as they did against BYU.

they won't survive another effort like that.

SMC played the first half looking like the SMC team did all year against not-GU. I hard press bothered them some in the 2nd half, but they beat VCU 85-77. They face Arizona next.

The Pac-12 got three high level seeds: #2 Arizona, #3 Oregon and #3 UCLA. Hope the NIT is not an indicator for them. Utah lost at home to Boise St, Cal lost at home to CSU Bakersfield, and Colorado lost at Central Florida.

Tough time all around for Cal. Their two best players were hurt, they lost to Bakersfield(!), and their coach left right after for a new job. And I keep reading that their financial struggles may limit their ability to pay for a big-time new coach.

up7587 wrote:The Pac-12 got three high level seeds: #2 Arizona, #3 Oregon and #3 UCLA.  Hope the NIT is not an indicator for them.  Utah lost at home to Boise St, Cal lost at home to CSU Bakersfield, and Colorado lost at Central Florida.

This analysis is on par with my pick em' expertise.  Pac-12 is 4-0 so far, with UCLA yet to play.  USC won the play-in game, then beat a 30 win SMU team on one day of rest.

Ouch, just realized I had SMU reaching the Elite Eight. Crap.

SouthCarolinaPilot wrote:Well, with this edition of March Sadness, I'm sure we all know who I am rooting for.

Nice win for the Gamecocks.  Did you make it there?

Now, please please please beat Duke.

I will take the W! But, I think this is the end of the Gamecocks run.

That was not the ending I had expected. Especially after that ugly first half. Unfortunately, I did not make it. Tickets were just too expensive and went so fast between us being in-state and Duke. I went to our women's game instead which we held on campus.

Where's mattywizz's badgtastic bracket this year?

Three words.

Truck. Stop. Conference.

blacksheep wrote:Where's mattywizz's badgtastic bracket this year?

Dude's an ultrarunner now, can you believe it?