College Basketball 2009-10

[Flames24Rulz]

Murray over Vandy is my biggest upset in the first round. I also have Utah State downing A&M.

 

I'm having a tough time with everything outside of the first weekend though because my bracket is really chalky as it currently stands. I don't like that.

[CubbieBum]

I picked more upsets this year than normal. Don't know why but I just don't like the favored teams match as much.

 

My first round upsets in non-8/9 games are Georgia Tech, Minnesota, Utah St. and Missouri. My other upsets are Tennessee beating Georgetown, Richmond beating Villanova, two of the 5 seeds beating 4's and Pitt making Final Four.

 

My Final Four as of now are Kansas vs. Pitt and Kentucky vs. Duke. I may however switch Baylor into the Final Four over Duke.

[UMFan83]

My upsets are (not including 8-9 matchups)

 

10 Ga Tech over 7 Oklahoma State

13 Murray State over 4 Vanderbilt

11 Minnesota over 6 Xavier

10 Florida over 7 BYU

12 Cornell over 5 Temple

10 Missouri over 7 Clemson

11 ODU over 6 Notre Dame

 

My Elite 8 is:

1 Kansas

1 Syracuse

1 Kentucky

2 Kansas State

2 Villanova

3 New Mexico

5 Texas A&M

6 Tennessee

 

Final 4:

1 Kansas

1 Syracuse

1 Kentucky

2 Villanova

 

Title game is Kansas and Kentucky with Kansas winning.

[RedFlash]

My upsets are (not including 8-9 matchups)Title game is Kansas and Kentucky with Kansas winning.

 

That would be such a sweet championship game.

[Sosa21MVP]

Oh, and Illinois got hosed by the committee. We had the best resume of any bubble team and we got left out.

 

75 RPI, 14 losses. No, not really. Not even close matter of fact.

[CubbieBum]

My upsets are (not including 8-9 matchups)

 

10 Ga Tech over 7 Oklahoma State

13 Murray State over 4 Vanderbilt

11 Minnesota over 6 Xavier

10 Florida over 7 BYU

12 Cornell over 5 Temple

10 Missouri over 7 Clemson

11 ODU over 6 Notre Dame

 

My Elite 8 is:

1 Kansas

1 Syracuse

1 Kentucky

2 Kansas State

2 Villanova

3 New Mexico

5 Texas A&M

6 Tennessee

 

Final 4:

1 Kansas

1 Syracuse

1 Kentucky

2 Villanova

 

Title game is Kansas and Kentucky with Kansas winning.

 

I have the same title game and champ.

[Guest]

Oh, and Illinois got hosed by the committee. We had the best resume of any bubble team and we got left out.

 

75 RPI, 14 losses. No, not really. Not even close matter of fact.

As stated many times in this thread, RPI is garbage.

 

And we had far more quality wins than anyone else on the bubble. Lots of wins against garbage competition doesn't mean much.

[chuckywang]

Is there not a single open gym on Wednesday night in the entire state of Illinois?

[CubbieBum]

Oh, and Illinois got hosed by the committee. We had the best resume of any bubble team and we got left out.

 

75 RPI, 14 losses. No, not really. Not even close matter of fact.

As stated many times in this thread, RPI is garbage.

 

And we had far more quality wins than anyone else on the bubble. Lots of wins against garbage competition doesn't mean much.

 

I can't believe someone is arguing against this. Sure Illinois had some big wins. They also had a lot of losses. You can say RPI is garbage all you want (all of sudden RPI is garbage to Illinois fans) but it is a pretty credible ranking. It's not the end all, be all but it holds some weight.

 

How about Pomeroy? Illinois is a whopping 52nd on there (Utah St. is 20). We can also go to Saragin where Illinois is 59th (Utah St. is 40th).

 

Illinois had some big wins but that doesn't get you in the tourney. Illinois had 14 freaking losses, lost six of their last eight and aren't high on any rankings whether it be the polls, RPI, Pomeroy or Saragin so face it already.

[Derwood]

supposedly, the tournament committee doesn't look at RPI

[bukie]

Oh, and Illinois got hosed by the committee. We had the best resume of any bubble team and we got left out.

 

75 RPI, 14 losses. No, not really. Not even close matter of fact.

As stated many times in this thread, RPI is garbage.

 

And we had far more quality wins than anyone else on the bubble. Lots of wins against garbage competition doesn't mean much.

 

I can't believe someone is arguing against this. Sure Illinois had some big wins. They also had a lot of losses. You can say RPI is garbage all you want (all of sudden RPI is garbage to Illinois fans) but it is a pretty credible ranking. It's not the end all, be all but it holds some weight.

 

How about Pomeroy? Illinois is a whopping 52nd on there (Utah St. is 20). We can also go to Saragin where Illinois is 59th (Utah St. is 40th).

 

Illinois had some big wins but that doesn't get you in the tourney. Illinois had 14 freaking losses, lost six of their last eight and aren't high on any rankings whether it be the polls, RPI, Pomeroy or Saragin so face it already.

They were also the first team left out, so they did something right. They had so many more good wins than the other bubble teams, it wasn't close. They lost 6 of their last 8, 5 of which were to the RPI top 25. They scheduled better non-conference than any other bubble team, and finished in the top half of a top tier conference, and played all the top teams twice.

 

So, before you post your ignorant nonsense yet again, at least take a look at some things.

[CubbieBum]

supposedly, the tournament committee doesn't look at RPI

 

The tournament committee doesn't look at any rankings or ratings. I've read they do it from scratch to the best of their ability.

[Guest]

Gus Johnson is doing the games in Buffalo!!!

 

And Mizzou is playing before 2 PM. I lead a tortured life.

[CubbieBum]

From ESPN blog entry.

 

"You know, [illinois] did impress to some degree, obviously in their performance in the Big Ten tournament" Guerrero said. " But when you look at the entire body of work in a general sense, they had some situations where they lost to some teams below 100 on the RPI. They were below .500 versus teams in the top 100. Their conference strength schedule was not the strongest. In the end, Illinois did not make the cut."

[bukie]

From ESPN blog entry.

 

"You know, [illinois] did impress to some degree, obviously in their performance in the Big Ten tournament" Guerrero said. " But when you look at the entire body of work in a general sense, they had some situations where they lost to some teams below 100 on the RPI. They were below .500 versus teams in the top 100. Their conference strength schedule was not the strongest. In the end, Illinois did not make the cut."

They were 5-9 against the top 25, 6-3 against 26-100. Their conference strength schedule was 4th, and the top 5 were basically interchangeable. They had two bad losses in Vegas in November.

[SpongeWorthy]

So basically you guys want Illinois to crawl into the tournament while Weber continues to poison the well? The guy is a garbage coach.

 

They're going to be middling at best until the right hire is made.

 

If McCamey comes back they're going to contend for the Big Ten title next year.

 

I'm sorry but big freaking whoop. Your sights should be higher than contending for a conference title once every few years.

 

If Kruger or Self had stuck around you'd be looking at a perennial powerhouse, IMO. I don't see that ever coming out of Weber. What's holding Illinois back from being one of the 5-10 best jobs in the country?

[CubbieBum]

Oh, and Illinois got hosed by the committee. We had the best resume of any bubble team and we got left out.

 

75 RPI, 14 losses. No, not really. Not even close matter of fact.

As stated many times in this thread, RPI is garbage.

 

And we had far more quality wins than anyone else on the bubble. Lots of wins against garbage competition doesn't mean much.

 

I can't believe someone is arguing against this. Sure Illinois had some big wins. They also had a lot of losses. You can say RPI is garbage all you want (all of sudden RPI is garbage to Illinois fans) but it is a pretty credible ranking. It's not the end all, be all but it holds some weight.

 

How about Pomeroy? Illinois is a whopping 52nd on there (Utah St. is 20). We can also go to Saragin where Illinois is 59th (Utah St. is 40th).

 

Illinois had some big wins but that doesn't get you in the tourney. Illinois had 14 freaking losses, lost six of their last eight and aren't high on any rankings whether it be the polls, RPI, Pomeroy or Saragin so face it already.

They were also the first team left out, so they did something right. They had so many more good wins than the other bubble teams, it wasn't close. They lost 6 of their last 8, 5 of which were to the RPI top 25. They scheduled better non-conference than any other bubble team, and finished in the top half of a top tier conference, and played all the top teams twice.

 

So, before you post your ignorant nonsense yet again, at least take a look at some things.

 

You might want to look up ignorant in the dictionary. I know all of that. The fact is they lost a lot of games, were below .500 against the RPI top 100 and don't rate/rank high on anyone's ratings/rankings. If they were in the field it wouldn't be a big deal as they showed the capability to play very well but their not being in the field isn't a snub. They played extremely inconsistently which made them a team that is right on the border where either way they fall is OK.

[bukie]

So basically you guys want Illinois to crawl into the tournament while Weber continues to poison the well? The guy is a garbage coach.

 

They're going to be middling at best until the right hire is made.

 

If McCamey comes back they're going to contend for the Big Ten title next year.

 

I'm sorry but big freaking whoop. Your sights should be higher than contending for a conference title once every few years.

 

If Kruger or Self had stuck around you'd be looking at a perennial powerhouse, IMO. I don't see that ever coming out of Weber. What's holding Illinois back from being one of the 5-10 best jobs in the country?

Weber's coaching ability isn't and shouldn't be in question. Recruiting was an issue for a while, but the recruits are finally coming. Getting the recruits to buy into Weber's system right now is the challenge.

[bukie]

You might want to look up ignorant in the dictionary. I know all of that.

The fact is, even if you did know all that, you ignored it in your first post. That is the definition of ignorant.

 

EDIT: Instead, you focused on two things that anyone who wants to fancy themselves a sports journalist should know the committee doesn't consider: a team's specific RPI number, and their record of late.

[SpongeWorthy]

So basically you guys want Illinois to crawl into the tournament while Weber continues to poison the well? The guy is a garbage coach.

 

They're going to be middling at best until the right hire is made.

 

If McCamey comes back they're going to contend for the Big Ten title next year.

 

I'm sorry but big freaking whoop. Your sights should be higher than contending for a conference title once every few years.

 

If Kruger or Self had stuck around you'd be looking at a perennial powerhouse, IMO. I don't see that ever coming out of Weber. What's holding Illinois back from being one of the 5-10 best jobs in the country?

Weber's coaching ability isn't and shouldn't be in question. Recruiting was an issue for a while, but the recruits are finally coming. Getting the recruits to buy into Weber's system right now is the challenge.

 

Well I have my questions about Weber's coaching ability. But the recruiting thing is still a huge issue. I don't follow this stuff, especially when it comes to Illinois, nearly as much as you guys but my very subjective opinion is that it really shouldn't be that hard to pull in top 10 classes to Illinois.

 

Is there anything stopping Illinois from throwing gobs of money at Jamie Dixon or whoever? I really do think if you find your Thad Matta you'd see Illinois rule the Big 10. It's a huge state with no real in state competitor.

[Flames24Rulz]

Here's my prelimary bracket:

 

Final 4 - Kansas, Kansas St, Kentucky, Notre Dame

Elite 8 - Kansas, Georgetown, Butler, K-State, Kentucky, West Virginia, Duke, Notre Dame

 

Upsets:

 

9 over 8 - UNI over UNLV, Wake over Texas, Louisville over Cal

10 over 7 - Georgia Tech over Oklahoma St, Missouri over Clemson, St. Mary's over Richmond

11 over 6 - San Diego State over Tennessee, Minnesota over Xavier

12 over 5 - Utah St over Texas A&M

13 over 4 - Murray State over Vandy, Siena over Purdue

 

I have Syracuse losing to Gonzaga in the second round. This is definitely all subject-to-change before Thursday morning.

[Magnetic Curses]

self also regularly lost out on the top players in the state while he was at illinois. his best class had dee, deron, augustine, warren carter, and kyle wilson. deron was borderline top 50 and augustone was borderline top 100. wilson and carter were projects.

 

kruger resurrected the program by getting the manual class, but was boycotted by the public league. he would have never been able to rebuild those in-roads to the point where illinois would have been a perennial powerhouse.

 

weber's 2010 class is, on paper, probably the best class since the lou henson days, and, as bukie has so eloquently put it, it takes time to get kids to buy into a motion offense. you can't play it without very smart kids and it's not going to attract the run-of-the-mill kamalas-for-hire. i'm giving bruce another year to get things back to where they were.

[bukie]

Well I have my questions about Weber's coaching ability. But the recruiting thing is still a huge issue. I don't follow this stuff, especially when it comes to Illinois, nearly as much as you guys but my very subjective opinion is that it really shouldn't be that hard to pull in top 10 classes to Illinois.

 

Is there anything stopping Illinois from throwing gobs of money at Jamie Dixon or whoever? I really do think if you find your Thad Matta you'd see Illinois rule the Big 10. It's a huge state with no real in state competitor.

Keep in mind that in year two, Weber took the team further than it's ever gone before during the modern tournament era. That buys a guy a good amount of leeway. He almost used all that up in 3 years with the recruiting disasters, emphasized with the Eric Gordon fiasco. Last year, after 4 years with one year's worth of good recruits, he coached the team to second in the Big Ten and a 5 seed in the tournament. This year, the recruits are finally coming through, and the defensive intensity dropped off a cliff, not just in the recruits but in the returning players like McCamey and Davis. Frustrating, but worth at least another year to see if it can be fixed.

[SouthSideRyan]

So basically you guys want Illinois to crawl into the tournament while Weber continues to poison the well? The guy is a garbage coach.

 

They're going to be middling at best until the right hire is made.

 

If McCamey comes back they're going to contend for the Big Ten title next year.

 

I'm sorry but big freaking whoop. Your sights should be higher than contending for a conference title once every few years.

 

If Kruger or Self had stuck around you'd be looking at a perennial powerhouse, IMO. I don't see that ever coming out of Weber. What's holding Illinois back from being one of the 5-10 best jobs in the country?

 

The reason we are where we've been the last 4 years is because of a horrendous stretch of recruiting. He's recruiting now, I don't know what you want from me. If Illinois contends for a Big Ten title, that means they're a top 10-15 team in the country. You think if Illinois does that next year, they're gonna go win 19 games in '12? I agree with IG that the '11 recruiting class is going to be a huge one for Weber. If he manages a top 10 class there, Illinois is going to be very very good for a long time.

 

And Kruger was not going to make Illinois into a perennial powerhouse. He was very fortunate that Peoria was so fertile while he was here. He wasn't getting anything out of the Chicago area. Self, I could see, but it's easy to say that now that he's gone on to one of the programs that recruits itself, and allows people who can't read like Brandon Rush into the school.

[Magnetic Curses]

the university of illinois, is, for some reason, a tough sell. many recruits simply feel like they're too good to play for state school in champaign, imo.