2022 Postseason

DoubleDipper wrote:Tomorrow night Coastal Carolina is home to Florida Gulf Coast and South Alabama hosts USC Upstate.

Is one of the winners tomorrow night going to be told to go home because UP will be stepping-in for them??

Coastal Carolina blew out FGCU, 84-68, and South Alabama beat USC Upstate, 83-79.

I'd say we are playing one of those two teams...in Portland?

DoubleDipper wrote:Coastal Carolina blew out FGCU, 84-68, and South Alabama beat USC Upstate, 83-79.

I'd say we are playing one of those two teams...in Portland?

Both teams have played two home games, so traveling to Portland does seem more likely.  So. Alabama has had two close games.  Coastal Carolina has had two big wins.   Both teams are from the Sun Belt league; USA finished 5th and CCU finished 7th.

Based on TBC performance I'd guess the Jaguars from Mobile would be the opponent, but based on regular season I'd guess the Chanticleers from Conway, S.C. would be the opponent.  Flip a coin.

Coastal Carolina @ South Alabama next Monday.

Pilots will hit the road to play either Southern Utah or UTEP on Friday.

Bummer, dude.

Strange they'd have two team from the same conference play each other...but this has been one strange "tournament."

Likely saving travel money...

Southern Utah was 2nd in the Big Sky conference, lost to Portland St. in the conference tournament, beat Kent St. last Wednesday and plays at UTEP Tuesday on ESPN+.

UTEP finished 4th in the West Division of Conference USA, lost their 2nd game in the conference tourney, and beat Western Illinois Saturday.  They are led by DoubleDipper's old favorite from USF Souley Boum.

UTEP favored by 4 to 4.5 points.

up7587 wrote:UTEP finished 4th in the West Division of Conference USA, lost their 2nd game in the conference tourney, and beat Western Illinois Saturday.  They are led by DoubleDipper's old favorite from USF Souley Boum.

Souley!!

He and I played the same position at the same high school 55 years apart.    He is much better than I ever dreamed of being.

Saw him play at UOP earlier in the season, I think he dropped about 30 points while shooting over 50%.

Souley just seems to score around 20 every night at UTEP after scoring 26 on UP in his first game in the Chiles Center as a freshman in 2017. Really good kid!

Dean Murdoch wrote:Coastal Carolina @ South Alabama next Monday.

Pilots will hit the road to play either Southern Utah or UTEP on Friday.

Maybe.

Scott Leykam @sleykam wrote:Working plan is we're headed to UTEP/Southern Utah winner in next round. Game could be as soon as Friday depending on travel schedules.

I'm so confused. The Pilots are effectively getting an ad-libbed "bye" because the "tournament" ended up with an odd number of teams?

Or... The UTEP/SUU winner is getting penalized with a mid-tournament play-in game? We should have signed-up for the actual tournament in Florida.

No one will do it, because this entire thing has zero national relevance, but it would be very entertaining to read a well-reported article about the management of this thing. Feels like it's being run out of someone's basement.

NoPoNeighbor wrote:Feels like it's being run out of someone's mom's basement.

Fixed your post.

NoPoNeighbor wrote:I'm so confused. The Pilots are effectively getting an ad-libbed "bye" because the "tournament" ended up with an odd number of teams?

In the end Portland gets no easier of a road than Coastal Carolina, South Alabama, Fresno State, etc. All of these teams have to win two games to get into the semifinals.

If you consider the Southern Utah/Kent State and UTEP/Western Illinois games to be "play-in games" then the other 14 teams enter at that point with the two winners and you just end up with a run-of-the-mill 16-team single-elimination bracket. Tonight's UTEP/SUU game ends up being a Round of 16 game with the winner going to the QFs, just like the Portland/New Orleans game was.

The real solution here is to have an eight-team Western Classic postseason tournament. Teams from Texas and west, straight bracket, campus sites. Obviously there isn't enough demand to fill a 32-team national bracket for a third-tier tournament, likely due in no small part to teams like Western Illinois having to go to UTEP and New Orleans having to go to Portland on just a couple days' notice. Remove the possibility of cross-continent travel and you'd have no difficulty filling a bracket like that. Maybe blacksheep and I will set that up from his mom's basement next year!

Dean Murdoch wrote:If you consider the Southern Utah/Kent State and UTEP/Western Illinois games to be "play-in games"...

That's a pretty big "if"! Especially since the guy in his mom's basement running this thing explicitly does NOT consider SUU/Kent and UTEP/Wester Illinois to be play-in games. According to the website, those two games were part of the first round, as was UP's win over UNO. Tonight's game between SUU and UTEP is in the second round. The winner then plays another second round game (round 2.5?) against UP.

I do like the complete chaos of your approach to interpreting this thing, Dean. Just play a bunch of games, send teams all over the country on a moment's notice, and then retroactively devise a bracket that gives the results some semblance of logic.

The NCAA tournament should follow suit. There would be a Secret Surprise team that gets inserted into the bracket between the Sweet 16 and Elite 8. One unlucky Sweet 16 winner has to play in the Secret Surprise Play-In Game in order to continue on to the Elite 8. It's like a detour in the bracket.

NoPoNeighbor wrote:The NCAA tournament should follow suit. There would be a Secret Surprise team that gets inserted into the bracket between the Sweet 16 and Elite 8. One unlucky Sweet 16 winner has to play in the Secret Surprise Play-In Game in order to continue on to the Elite 8. It's like a detour in the bracket.

Something tells me that it would always be a St. Peter's getting the Secret Surprise Play-in Game against a Big-10 or SEC school.

Fun note:

Front Office Sports @FOS wrote:St. Peter's didn't have the money to send their Cheerleading squad to the NCAA tournament.

So, NBC and Peacock sent them a bus to get them from Jersey City to Indianapolis in time for the Round of 32

h/t @willmaup

NoPoNeighbor wrote:I do like the complete chaos of your approach to interpreting this thing, Dean. Just play a bunch of games, send teams all over the country on a moment's notice, and then retroactively devise a bracket that gives the results some semblance of logic.

May I present the "we knew what we were doing the whole time" bracket!

(I couldn't figure out how to incorporate a separate bracket with Merrimack's 2-0 forfeit win over UMBC and Merrimack's subsequent departure from the tournament)

up7587 wrote:
Fun note:

Front Office Sports @FOS wrote:St. Peter's didn't have the money to send their Cheerleading squad to the NCAA tournament.

So, NBC and Peacock sent them a bus to get them from Jersey City to Indianapolis in time for the Round of 32

h/t @willmaup

Yeah, I saw that and was surprised.

In the not-too-distant past, the NCAA reached into their $$$millions and paid for cheerleaders and bands to travel to the tournament sites.

I still question the accuracy of that tweet...

up7587 wrote:Something tells me that it would always be a St. Peter's getting the Secret Surprise Play-in Game against a Big-10 or SEC school.

Actually, it's Syracuse. Every year. (So not really a secret, nor a surprise.)

Dean Murdoch wrote:May I present the "we knew what we were doing the whole time" bracket!

I love it!

Don't forget that if you throw heads 4 tubes in a row you swap the 4 quadrants of the bracket around before the next round starts

Southern Utah beat UTEP tonight in El Paso, 82-69.

Souley scored 25 points and there were over 3500 in attendance...

If the rules have not changed once again, the Pilots play in Cedar City, Utah on Friday Saturday.

I have been there, but it is not easy.  Best bet is through Las Vegas with a 2–3-hour drive.  You can also fly to Cedar City from Salt Lake City on a Delta connecter without the drive.

SUU - NET 178/KenPom 161

UP - NET 176/KenPom 170

KenPom's prediction: SUU 80 - UP 76

DoubleDipper wrote:SUU - NET 178/KenPom 161

UP - NET 176/KenPom 170

KenPom's prediction: SUU 80 - UP 76

Perfect. UP has beaten the kenpom line all year.

SUU played 6 guys major minutes, and a 7th for 12 minutes. They got balanced scoring from all 6. They shot very well (58% overall and 43.5% on 3Ps), rebounded well, had a lot of assists, and had too many turnovers. Sounds like an even match for the Pilots.

DoubleDipper wrote:Southern Utah beat UTEP tonight in El Paso, 82-69.

Souley scored 25 points and there were over 3500 in attendance...

If the rules have not changed once again, the Pilots play in Cedar City, Utah on Friday Saturday.

I have been there, but it is not easy.  Best bet is through Las Vegas with a 2–3-hour drive.  You can also fly to Cedar City from Salt Lake City on a Delta connecter without the drive.

Friday, Saturday, Friday.

It's not on the UP web site schedule, or the SUU web site schedule, but the guys in mom's basement say the game is Saturday 3/25 at 6:00pm EST. Since Friday is 3/25 and it is now DST, who knows.

ESPN says it is Friday 3/25 at 3:00 PT.

The game will obviously be played at 7:00pm eastern daylight time (the equivalent of 6:00 standard time) on March 25 2023, which is a Saturday.

up7587 wrote:It's not on the UP web site schedule, or the SUU web site schedule, but the guys in mom's basement say the game is Saturday 3/25 at 6:00pm EST.

The CIT/TBC schedule page now says Saturday, March 26 which is an actual date on this year's calendar. Progress!

We're kind of like Arizona in our part of the world in that we don't change our clocks back & forth each year, so I'll let you experts argue about EST/EDT

@PortlandMBB wrote:NOT. DONE. YET

Pilots are on the road vs Southern Utah this Saturday

https://portlandpilots.com/news/2022/3/23/mens-basketball-pilots-continue-postseason-run-saturday-at-southern-utah.aspx