2014 NCAA Tournament

[bukie]

Maybe NIT discussion as well since making it have its own thread is silly.

 

Right now, I have Florida, Louisville, Arizona, and MSU in my Final Four.

 

I also have a difficult time not having the top 4 seeds in the Sweet 16 in the Midwest region.

[snoodmonger]

Well, New Mexico is a tough 7 seed, assuming KU wins its opening round game. We beat them by 17 earlier in the season, but Embiid was huge in the game and got their 7 footer in foul trouble. That will be tough to win. Overall, it will be a tough bracket for us to go far in, though I'd probably say that about any draw we got. We're too inconsistent, and JoJo being out makes it really impossible to evaluate how good we are.

[Exile on Waveland]

Maybe NIT discussion as well since making it have its own thread is silly.

 

Right now, I have Florida, Louisville, Arizona, and MSU in my Final Four.

 

I also have a difficult time not having the top 4 seeds in the Sweet 16 in the Midwest region.

 

That's what I have right now, though debating Duke/Louisville.

[RynoRules]

Maybe NIT discussion as well since making it have its own thread is silly.

 

Right now, I have Florida, Louisville, Arizona, and MSU in my Final Four.

 

I also have a difficult time not having the top 4 seeds in the Sweet 16 in the Midwest region.

 

That's what I have right now, though debating Duke/Louisville.

 

L'ville will make Jabari's balls hurt. He hasn't seen that kind of defense before.

[NOLA]

If I win Warren Buffett's billion dollar bracket, I promise to buy out all of the rooftop owners. Then go sign Bryce Harper.

[Exile on Waveland]

Maybe NIT discussion as well since making it have its own thread is silly.

 

Right now, I have Florida, Louisville, Arizona, and MSU in my Final Four.

 

I also have a difficult time not having the top 4 seeds in the Sweet 16 in the Midwest region.

 

That's what I have right now, though debating Duke/Louisville.

 

L'ville will make Jabari's balls hurt. He hasn't seen that kind of defense before.

 

Today's was pretty tough...

[Cubswin11]

Florida, MSU, Creighton, Louisville in my first run through with MSU over Louisville in the championship. Not a ton of upsets, biggest one in round 1 for me is Arizona st over Texas. Have New Mexico beating Kansas in round 2, though.

[CubInOK]

Doesn't North Dakota State always beat a good team every year?

[UMFan83]

Why is everyone and their mom picking MSU to win the title? I've never seen such consensus in my life of following the NCAAs. Even more then Kentucky a couple of years ago. I can understand the talking points (weak region, finally healthy, dominated BTT, Izzo in march, etc). To me with that you can make the case that they are among a handful of teams that could win it all (and lest anyone think I'm being a homer, I don't think UM is one of those teams), maybe one you can say is a favorite to get to E8/F4 but people have gone bananas over MSU, the team that was recently losing 6/10 games including just a week ago to OSU and 2 weeks ago at home to Illinois (while fully healthy).

[mul21]

Why is everyone and their mom picking MSU to win the title? I've never seen such consensus in my life of following the NCAAs. Even more then Kentucky a couple of years ago. I can understand the talking points (weak region, finally healthy, dominated BTT, Izzo in march, etc). To me with that you can make the case that they are among a handful of teams that could win it all (and lest anyone think I'm being a homer, I don't think UM is one of those teams), maybe one you can say is a favorite to get to E8/F4 but people have gone bananas over MSU, the team that was recently losing 6/10 games including just a week ago to OSU and 2 weeks ago at home to Illinois (while fully healthy).

 

Well, first, they were a team that was pegged to be one of the top 2 or 3 from the beginning of the year and haven't been healthy enough to make that a reality all year. I think they're getting a pass for the first few games those guys were back because they hadn't played together much. You throw in how good they looked against everybody this week in the BTT, especially the last 2 games against Wisky and Michigan, I think it's a reasonable position to take, especially when you add in the coaching cache that Izzo brings.

[Guest]

Izzo still has the "every player he's coached has gone to a Final Four" thing going(excl. Marcus Taylor), right? He'd need a Final Four this year to keep that going.

[Cubswin11]

MSU was my choice before the year if they were healthy, which they appear to be now. I really haven't seen much else out of any other team to really sway me, so that's why I'm picking MSU.

[abuck1220]

iowa st had as many wins over tournament teams last week (4) as nova has had since January 1. though the fact that I'm mildly irritated about a 3 seed makes me pretty happy.

[RynoRules]

Maybe NIT discussion as well since making it have its own thread is silly.

 

Right now, I have Florida, Louisville, Arizona, and MSU in my Final Four.

 

I also have a difficult time not having the top 4 seeds in the Sweet 16 in the Midwest region.

 

That's what I have right now, though debating Duke/Louisville.

 

L'ville will make Jabari's balls hurt. He hasn't seen that kind of defense before.

 

Today's was pretty tough...

 

Totally agree, but L'ville's is even tougher, IMO. Actually Florida would also drive him crazy. My guess is Donovan would float two guys at him at all-times and try to force him to take stand still jumpers.

[Exile on Waveland]

Maybe NIT discussion as well since making it have its own thread is silly.

 

Right now, I have Florida, Louisville, Arizona, and MSU in my Final Four.

 

I also have a difficult time not having the top 4 seeds in the Sweet 16 in the Midwest region.

 

That's what I have right now, though debating Duke/Louisville.

 

L'ville will make Jabari's balls hurt. He hasn't seen that kind of defense before.

 

Today's was pretty tough...

 

Totally agree, but L'ville's is even tougher, IMO. Actually Florida would also drive him crazy. My guess is Donovan would float two guys at him at all-times and try to force him to take stand still jumpers.

 

Think you're probably right. Just spit-ballin' here.

[UMFan83]

Izzo still has the "every player he's coached has gone to a Final Four" thing going(excl. Marcus Taylor), right? He'd need a Final Four this year to keep that going.

 

Yes he does. Is that a reason to pick MSU though?

 

At least we have Izzo's first class with a losing record against Michigan (despite yesterday) :)

[Andy]

Ended up with Florida, MSU, SDSU and Duke as Final 4, with Florida over Duke for the title. BYU somehow in the Elite 8. Doing these round by round without pre-existing thought to where people end up can lead to some odd predictions.

[rawaction]

Florida, Michigan St, Louisville, Baylor. Florida over Louisville for the NC.

[UMFan83]

My bracket is horrible and needs to be revised but I wanted to at least float one out there that didn't have MSU in the Final Four. Florida, Virginia, Duke and Creighton with Florida winning it. I think MSU and Louisville, while both great teams are being overrated right now, so State is losing to UVA and Louisville to Duke. I don't even like Duke that much but I think they will beat UM and then its between them, Louisville and Wichita State and I don't have WSU making the Final Four.

 

Creighton is a different story. I'm really hung up on Oklahoma State for some reason. I think they take down Arizona in the 3rd round and SD St. in the S16. Not the biggest fan of Creighton either but I think they are good enough to take down Bucky and get to the E8 to play OSU.

 

I'm completely insane aren't I? I don't like half my final 4, and the other 2 are one seeds including the one that people like the least, but this is how it played out with 5 second gut reactions for each pick.

[bukie]

My bracket is horrible and needs to be revised but I wanted to at least float one out there that didn't have MSU in the Final Four. Florida, Virginia, Duke and Creighton with Florida winning it. I think MSU and Louisville, while both great teams are being overrated right now, so State is losing to UVA and Louisville to Duke. I don't even like Duke that much but I think they will beat UM and then its between them, Louisville and Wichita State and I don't have WSU making the Final Four.

 

Creighton is a different story. I'm really hung up on Oklahoma State for some reason. I think they take down Arizona in the 3rd round and SD St. in the S16. Not the biggest fan of Creighton either but I think they are good enough to take down Bucky and get to the E8 to play OSU.

 

I'm completely insane aren't I? I don't like half my final 4, and the other 2 are one seeds including the one that people like the least, but this is how it played out with 5 second gut reactions for each pick.

This is usually why I build my bracket backwards, starting with the champ and working back from there.

[mul21]

My bracket is horrible and needs to be revised but I wanted to at least float one out there that didn't have MSU in the Final Four. Florida, Virginia, Duke and Creighton with Florida winning it. I think MSU and Louisville, while both great teams are being overrated right now, so State is losing to UVA and Louisville to Duke. I don't even like Duke that much but I think they will beat UM and then its between them, Louisville and Wichita State and I don't have WSU making the Final Four.

 

Creighton is a different story. I'm really hung up on Oklahoma State for some reason. I think they take down Arizona in the 3rd round and SD St. in the S16. Not the biggest fan of Creighton either but I think they are good enough to take down Bucky and get to the E8 to play OSU.

 

I'm completely insane aren't I? I don't like half my final 4, and the other 2 are one seeds including the one that people like the least, but this is how it played out with 5 second gut reactions for each pick.

 

I think Michigan is the exact kind of team Louisville will struggle with because they shoot it so well. All that defensive pressure will lead to open looks from 3 and Michigan will knock a lot of those down.

[bukie]

Nate Silver being all Nate Silver on the NCAA tournament: http://fivethirtyeight.com/features/nate-silvers-ncaa-basketball-predictions/

[Guest]

Izzo still has the "every player he's coached has gone to a Final Four" thing going(excl. Marcus Taylor), right? He'd need a Final Four this year to keep that going.

 

Yes he does. Is that a reason to pick MSU though?

 

At least we have Izzo's first class with a losing record against Michigan (despite yesterday) :)

 

I wasn't using that as justification for picking MSU(I have them losing to ISU), although tangentially it does make the point that Izzo has an outstanding track record in coaching teams in the tournament. I've just always thought that achievement was remarkable.

[rawaction]

Slightly off topic: But I'm oddly very interested to see what kind of pro McDermott turns out to be. Any thoughts? Bigger JJ Redick? Mike Dunleavy? Insert random white guy?

[UMFan83]

Slightly off topic: But I'm oddly very interested to see what kind of pro McDermott turns out to be. Any thoughts? Bigger JJ Redick? Mike Dunleavy? Insert random white guy?

 

Hopefully not Adam Morrison