SouthSideRyan

I run an auction pool for the tourney. UCLA went for $150.25. More than any 2 teams combined. Next highest was UNC for 90, Memphis for 60, KU for 53.25, Texas for 51, Georgetown for 40. I spent 17 bucks on Davidson.

Davidson to the Final 4

Yeah, I can't believe that after the way the bubble broke this year that people would still argue to increase the field. I'm so sick of the college football bowl argument. All anyone ever does is piss and moan about how many bowls there are. So why not ruin basketball's postseason by letting everyone in so these same people can piss and moan. 64 is perfect. Eliminate the play-in. 33 at large. Baylor/Arkansas will survive.

but will be blocked by Corey Patterson If/when Bruce is sent back to AAA it will have nothing to do with Corey Patterson and everything to do with his .557 spring training OPS. Losing it to Corey Patterson probably is more logical.

Kevin Hart could be stretched out.

Texas Kansas St. A&M OK WSU Stanford AZ USC ASU Oregon Duke Clemson MSU IU Purdue Louisville Marquette Georgetown Notre Dame UConn West Virginia Tennessee Vanderbilt Xavier St. Joe's BYU Gonzaga St. Mary's *South Alabama Mississippi St. Villanova Baylor Miami Arkansas* I'm shocked at pretty much every team from USA down.

And since I keep talking about teams that don't belong, I'll put myself out there and put together my 34 in a couple minutes, so I can ripped to shreds.

Arkansas is definitely a tournament team - the only ones left on the bubble before the SEC tourney were Kentucky and Ole Miss. The Razorbacks have an RPI of 32 with a strength of schedule of 25. They've had some bad losses (UGA for instance) but also some good wins - I thought they were placed just about right in the tourney. Memphis' one loss came to #2 ranked (at the time) Tennessee. Otherwise, they beat USC (neutral site), Georgetown, Arizona and Gonzaga since Dec. 1. How exactly were they not tested? Tennessee beat Western Kentucky, Xavier (on the road), Gonzaga (on the road), Ohio State, Memphis (on the road) and Kentucky since Dec. 1. All those teams are either in the tourney or just missed it (OSU). How exactly were they not tested? I used past 3 months to refer to March, February, January, essentially meaning the start of conference play, but I definitely was not clear. Arkansas has more losses to non-tourney teams as they do wins against tourney teams. And other than Tennessee none of those teams were particularly good. Thinking back, I guess I would have them in after the Tennessee win, but before that what are they hanging their hat on? A Baylor team that nobody thinks belongs? They beat Miss. St. by 20, but they've beaten even less good teams than Arkansas. The 2 wins over Vandy are respectable, but there really isn't a lot of heft for Arkansas.

I agonized over Davidson vs. Georgetown, deciding the winner of that would go to the Final 4. I took Georgetown, and then changed my mind by the time I got to the next round and had them lose to Wisky who I had lose to Kansas. Then I went back and changed my mind and put Davidson over G-Town and put Wisky over KU cause I didn't want 3 #1s in the Final 4. Bottom line, I've overthought, one of my 8 scenarios I didn't put down will come true and I'll claim I knew it was going to be happen, and sulk the rest of this thread. Seriously though, Davidson is very good.

Well my Pomeroy bias is clearly showing again when it comes to Tennessee's seeding(He's got em #14) Tennessee's win against Memphis did a lot of convincing to me that Tennessee was a legit top 10 team. Interesting that it is the Memphis win that convinced me though, as their situations are closer than one would expect when the season started. Memphis enters the tourney without really having many tests over the past 3 months due to the horrendous play in C-USA(to the point where even close wins were viewed as detriments. The SEC isn't so bad that Tennessee should be docked for winning close games, but losing to an Arkansas team I didn't have in the tourney(and probably still wouldn't if I was around for the final picks) was a dagger.

Final game as in national title game? Clemson isn't very good.

I missed the tail end of the last thread, but law-f-n l at the Tennessee hand-wringing. SEC fans love hyping up their teams for their brutal conference schedule in football. When it comes to basketball and they have 2 teams that belong in the damn tournament, they still complain. SEC basketball this year is utter garbage.

Sorry I wasn't able to get picks in for the final stuff, was at my sister's this weekend and her internet went to crap. For the best because I probably would've dragged our bracket down with my off the wall choices. Baylor in the tourney is a great big steaming load by the way.

I'm not sure Miami should be in at this point. VA Tech still has to beat whichever of the teams from Carolina teams is on their side of their bracket to be viable.

Not terrible like falling out of bounds against Winthrop terrible. Terrible like dribble 4 feet outside the top of the key for awhile then chuck up a fade away 24 footer with 12 seconds on the clock.

Tennessee survives on a terrible shot by Lofton.

The primary issue with Pomeroy's stats is that is wildly overvalues teams that are inconsistent, like Marquette, Kansas State, Texas A&M, Nebraska, Oklahoma and Arizona State. The true rating of those teams is somewhere in the middle, because an extremely good showing in a single game will shoot any team up the charts (heck, look at Illinois). It's a very valuable tool, and at least as valuable as the RPI if not more, though. It is a purely predictive rating, though, and says very little about how good a team's season has "been". In essence, Pomeroy's ratings are a good measure of who the "best" teams are, and the RPI is more of a measure of how much a team has "earned" a tournament spot. There's definitely somethign to be said for actually winning the damn game. I don't want to go all Meph here on this, but there's also something to be said for counting Kentucky's loss to Vandy by 85 as much of a loss as A&M's 5 OT loss to Baylor. As I said I use it as a baseline, and then compare schedule to schedule from there. It does allow some teams to sneak by in my subconscious as much better than they actually are(A&M, though they still should be in), but I like it better as a quick and dirty tool than RPI. Another driving force behind my picks is that the Pac 10 is really really good, and I don't think any other conferences are particularly close. This of course means no Pac 10 teams will make the final 4 and some crap team like Mississippi St. runs to the elite 8, but such is the tourney.

I swore by the RPI a few years ago but have moved away from it and more towards Pomeroy as my baseline. When looking deeper into things I didn't like the way things were weighted with it, relying too heavily on straight win-loss record, compared to looking deeper into why teams have those win-loss records. I was shocked to find out how low ASU's RPI was. Bottom line for me is that Temple and Charlotte don't have the quality wins and have more bad losses than ASU.

Let me be the first to say that Temple and Charlotte have no business as at-larges even in this weak crop.

Yep, 2 SEC, 3 ACC, 7 Pac 10. Who wants first shot at me?

Kansas Texas Kansas St. A&M OK UCLA WSU Stanford AZ USC ASU Duke UNC Clemson Wisconsin MSU IU Purdue Louisville Marquette Georgetown Notre Dame UConn West Virginia Pitt Tennessee Vanderbilt Xavier BYU Memphis Gonzaga St. Mary's Oregon UNLV

It'll be in a second, don't kill me.

Ahh well, so close. Well, three close games against PSU. First close (within a basket) win this year. Well, Mizzou, but those games don't even count as full wins anymore. This game was carbon copy of oh just about every other game all year. Nice to somehow pull it out. Good for Chet. No restrictions on the CBI, but if they take teams with losing records, it'll be to get a good crowd, which Penn St. isn't going to bring. Illinois probably has a better shot at it(undeservedly without a run to the finals) than PSU.

Florida getting obliterated by Bama knocks them out.

I've got em in, but I'm guessing their RPI keeps them out of the actual tourney.