College Basketball 2025-2026

[Tryptamine]

I have this mostly irrational feeling Underwood is bailing after this year. It's just something that keeps occurring to me the last few days.

[Rex Buckingham]

32 minutes ago, Tryptamine said:

I have this mostly irrational feeling Underwood is bailing after this year. It's just something that keeps occurring to me the last few days.

Nah, he has said repeatedly that Illinois is his dream job, including in the press conference tonight.

[bukie]

Underwood is 62, he's not going to want to start over at a new school, even if it is Kansas, Duke, Arizona, UNC, or Kentucky.

[I owned a Suzuki]

6 hours ago, bukie said:

Underwood is 62, he's not going to want to start over at a new school, even if it is Kansas, Duke, Arizona, UNC, or Kentucky.

Yeah I think GFlore34 is stuck with him until he retires

[gflore34]

57 minutes ago, I owned a Suzuki said:

Yeah I think GFlore34 is stuck with him until he retires

Gee, thanks.  Really though, now that he's broken the seal, I believe he'll be able to capitalize far more on this than Weber. 

Edited March 29 by gflore34

[mul21]

That was an impressive performance from Illinois last night.  They shot like horsefeathers, didn't get many opportunities from 3, and Iowa shot about as well as they could have expected to and in spite of all that, they absolutely dominated the second half of that game.  I have no idea why the officials decided they needed to get as involved as they did in the second half, but when Van Gundy is commenting about how ridiculous the change in the way the game is being called, you know something weird is going on.

I really believe Underwood learned something from the ass kicking they took against UConn a couple years ago.  He had no answers to them taking away their primary plan in that game and I've seen him adjust a couple different times in this tournament.  He's also done a good job of diversifying the types of players he brings in.  Wagler was an incredible find that isn't likely to happen again, but you have a couple shooters, a couple guys who can get to the rim, a couple solid perimeter defenders and then throw all the size on top of it and it's a damn solid unit regardless of the style of play in any particular game.

[gflore34]

6 hours ago, mul21 said:

That was an impressive performance from Illinois last night.  They shot like horsefeathers, didn't get many opportunities from 3, and Iowa shot about as well as they could have expected to and in spite of all that, they absolutely dominated the second half of that game.  I have no idea why the officials decided they needed to get as involved as they did in the second half, but when Van Gundy is commenting about how ridiculous the change in the way the game is being called, you know something weird is going on.

I really believe Underwood learned something from the ass kicking they took against UConn a couple years ago.  He had no answers to them taking away their primary plan in that game and I've seen him adjust a couple different times in this tournament.  He's also done a good job of diversifying the types of players he brings in.  Wagler was an incredible find that isn't likely to happen again, but you have a couple shooters, a couple guys who can get to the rim, a couple solid perimeter defenders and then throw all the size on top of it and it's a damn solid unit regardless of the style of play in any particular game.

Mirkovic as well, had no idea he was this good, very Joker-like, similar skills.

[Tryptamine]

Michigan beat the hell out of Tennessee and Duke is laying it on UConn so far. I hate to say it, but there's a pretty big gap between Illinois and Michigan/Arizona/Duke.

[Tryptamine]

Holy horsefeathers, that might be a top 5 NCAA shot ever.

[SpongeWorthy]

holy f never seen a game turn on a dime quite like that, when duke was breaking the trap in the backcourt by passing it looked like high IQ ball lol

[Soul]

That was just incredible.  Classic madness.

[gflore34]

1 hour ago, Tryptamine said:

Michigan beat the hell out of Tennessee and Duke is laying it on UConn so far. I hate to say it, but there's a pretty big gap between Illinois and Michigan/Arizona/Duke.

Don't believe there's a much of a gap, if any, between Illinois and UConn.  Duke, at times, looked beatable the whole tournament, it was only a matter of time that a good team would take them down.  Injuries caught up with them, a healthy Duke team probably has an easier time getting to the FF.

[gflore34]

1 hour ago, SpongeWorthy said:

holy f never seen a game turn on a dime quite like that, when duke was breaking the trap in the backcourt by passing it looked like high IQ ball lol

High IQ basketball would have been holding on to the ball, there was exactly 10 seconds on the clock.  I can understand, Sarr, who's a poor FT shooter passing the ball.  After the initial pass there was no need to advance the ball, just stand there, holding onto the ball.  I'm certain the coaching staff let them know to hold onto the ball.  Kid panicked at half court.

Edited March 30 by gflore34

[gflore34]

Hell of a game though, the Illini now end it up facing ass-hole #1, this time with a much better team.  Can't say I didn't enjoy seeing everyone's darling go down.

[soccer10k]

Duke blowing a game it had no business losing against an inferior team is one of my new favorite March traditions.

[UMFan83]

There’s a real possibility of an Illinois-Michigan final and that’s scary. 

[UMFan83]

Imagine the parallels to 1989 that will be talked about if Michigan and Illinois face off.

-Michigan undefeated against Illinois in the regular season

-Facing off late in the tourney

-Illinois is looking for their first title. 

Edited March 29 by UMFan83

[bukie]

1 minute ago, UMFan83 said:

Imagine the parallels to 1989 that will be talked about if Michigan and Illinois face off.

-Michigan undefeated against Illinois in the regular season

-Facing off late in the tourney

-Illinois is looking for their first title. 

First, Illinois needs to exercise their "Wait, is that a 30-0 run?" UConn demon.

Illini will be favored statistically though.

[gflore34]

7 minutes ago, UMFan83 said:

There’s a real possibility of an Illinois-Michigan final and that’s scary. 

To me the Michigan - Arizona match up is the de-facto championship, fairly certain the winner goes on to win on Monday.

[gflore34]

1 hour ago, bukie said:

First, Illinois needs to exercise their "Wait, is that a 30-0 run?" UConn demon.

Illini will be favored statistically though.

Nothing would please me more than seeing the Illini lay one on them.  If there ever was a program that deserved to eat some NCAA tournament humble pie it's UConn.

Edited March 30 by gflore34

[Irrelevant Dude]

1 hour ago, gflore34 said:

To me the Michigan - Arizona match up is the de-facto championship, fairly certain the winner goes on to win on Monday.

Is the winner going to be the clear favorite? Sure.  But "fairly certain" they win the championship?  Any one of these teams can beat the other on any given night.  Nothing is certain.

[Soul]

1 hour ago, gflore34 said:

To me the Michigan - Arizona match up is the de-facto championship, fairly certain the winner goes on to win on Monday.

Hey, Michigan is a great team.  A hot shooting Badger team went into their building and took them down.  Illinois or UConn absolutely could beat them.  I’m not as familiar with Arizona.

[Old Style]

horsefeathers Carlos Boozer and his two stupid kids. 

[gflore34]

9 hours ago, Old Style said:

horsefeathers Carlos Boozer and his two stupid kids. 

Listen to the Duke radio call: https://x.com/barstoolsports/status/2038406006514823171?s=20

[mul21]

13 hours ago, gflore34 said:

High IQ basketball would have been holding on to the ball, there was exactly 10 seconds on the clock.  I can understand, Sarr, who's a poor FT shooter passing the ball.  After the initial pass there was no need to advance the ball, just stand there, holding onto the ball.  I'm certain the coaching staff let them know to hold onto the ball.  Kid panicked at half court.

Apparently he didn't want to hold it (or was told not to hold it) because UConn had the possession arrow and they didn't want a tie up in the back court to give them an opportunity to win it.  That pass was about 2" from ending the game.  It was the right play, just not well executed enough.