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NCAA Tournament - UNC is victorious!
Hi I'm Vee!
Formerly VH; She/Her; Is an E X P E R I E N C ERegistered User regular
Formerly VH; She/Her; Is an E X P E R I E N C ERegistered User regular
Ladies and gentlemen, the Associated Press and Coaches Poll agree; if the Final Four happened now, the most likely teams in it would be:
1. North Carolina
North Carolina is the consensus #1 in both polls. As in, they got every single first place vote in both the AP and Coaches Poll. Crazy shit! It might have something to do with the fact that they're basically returning the same team from last year, and supposedly it's even better this year! People are talking 39-0. Crazy shit!
2. Louisville
Terrance Williams and Earl Clark stick around to give Rick Pitino his best chance so far to step out from under the shadow of his history at UK and make some new history at Louisville. This is a damn good team, and Rick Pitino is a damn good coach.
3. UConn
Hasheem Thabeet, besides having an awesome name, gave UConn perhaps the best defensive center in the nation when he decided not to head to the NBA. And Jim Calhoun isn't a bad coach either, to put it mildly.
4. UCLA
How did UCLA lose 3 starters to the NBA and still end up in the top 4? Well, a good start is keeping Darren Collison and adding Jrue Holiday, creating what is probably the best backcourt in the country. If some of the younger players like junior Keefe and freshmen J'Mison Morgan and Drew Gordon step up and exceed expectations, this team could contend for the championship.
AP poll
Coaches poll
As for me, I'm still rooting just as hard for UCLA this year, and I'm hoping Kentucky makes some waves too, now that Patterson is back and healthy and the team has had the opportunity to adapt to Gillispie's coaching style.
Go Bruins and Go 'Cats!
1. North Carolina
North Carolina is the consensus #1 in both polls. As in, they got every single first place vote in both the AP and Coaches Poll. Crazy shit! It might have something to do with the fact that they're basically returning the same team from last year, and supposedly it's even better this year! People are talking 39-0. Crazy shit!
2. Louisville
Terrance Williams and Earl Clark stick around to give Rick Pitino his best chance so far to step out from under the shadow of his history at UK and make some new history at Louisville. This is a damn good team, and Rick Pitino is a damn good coach.
3. UConn
Hasheem Thabeet, besides having an awesome name, gave UConn perhaps the best defensive center in the nation when he decided not to head to the NBA. And Jim Calhoun isn't a bad coach either, to put it mildly.
4. UCLA
How did UCLA lose 3 starters to the NBA and still end up in the top 4? Well, a good start is keeping Darren Collison and adding Jrue Holiday, creating what is probably the best backcourt in the country. If some of the younger players like junior Keefe and freshmen J'Mison Morgan and Drew Gordon step up and exceed expectations, this team could contend for the championship.
AP poll
Coaches poll
As for me, I'm still rooting just as hard for UCLA this year, and I'm hoping Kentucky makes some waves too, now that Patterson is back and healthy and the team has had the opportunity to adapt to Gillispie's coaching style.
Go Bruins and Go 'Cats!
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Woo.
Ugh
and fuck preseason polls.
Yeah, I think ASU's going to do really well this year. UCLA's going to have some tough games against them. I think ASU is the Washington State of this year's PAC-10.
And yeah, I saw the game last night, juice. Miami (OH) is perennially a tough school for an unranked team, though. They're one of those teams that has one really good player that keeps them in the game. Michigan's going to be a very interesting game, and if we make it past them, it's likely we'll have Duke next Friday, which will be a great early test of our squad.
I might actually be able to convince my dad to root for UCLA in that game, given how much he hates Duke.
As for UNC, I don't care how many we win, as long as we're cutting down all the nets come March. This team needs to know by now that good ol' Roy isn't going to take time-outs or do any sort of coaching at all in pressure situations. When their backs are against the wall, it's gonna be up to them just to be that much better than anybody else on the floor. They can do it. I know they can do it. At least until Roy starts messing with the rotation and putting five shooters on the floor just for kicks. But you can't blame the kids for that.
Oh I did watch, and I really hope that they improve. In fact, they most likely will. But if I've learned anything from the three major sports I follow at ASU in the past few years is to not get too hyped up about certain things.
It'll also be interesting to see how the team plays with the new coach, Tom Crean is now at Indiana and Buzz Williams, a former assistant under Crean, is the new coach. It sounds like the team is responding well for him and so far he has a top 5 ranked recruiting class coming in for 2009 so he seems to know what he's doing.
The first big game will be on December 6th against in-state rival Wisconsin. That one is always fun and Bo Ryan is a hard dude to try and beat.
A 5 point win vs Miami OH is like a 12-15 point win vs most schools who play a normal pace. The small margin is just a natural result of the super-slow pace Miami plays. It's like saying Usain Bolt only beat me in a 100m sprint by 1 second without mentioning that we were running in a swimming pool.
Most have USC and ASU battling for 2nd in the Pac-10 this year, both should be 20 game winners and easily make the NCAA tourney. Arizona's down, they were really hurt when Brandon Jennings went to Europe instead of Tuscon, followed by Lute Olsen's retirement.
Your guys' game vs Duke should be on at least one of the ESPNs, if not the main one. I'm just hoping someone out there picks up USC vs Memphis, which could also be on Friday in Puerto Rico. Once again this game would feature 2 of the most prominent freshmen in the class. Last year it was OJ Mayo vs Derrick Rose (both of whom are now tearing up the NBA), this year Demar DeRozan vs Tyreke Evans.
Anyone see Davidson and Oklahoma throw down in Norman? GREAT game, with 2 of the best kids in the country going at it. Blake Griffin was a beast putting up 25 points and 21 boards. Stephen Curry put up 44 - this kid is freaking automatic.
Of course, I thought Luc Richard Mbah a Moute wouldn't get drafted, and he's starting and putting up double-doubles. So what do I know?
Very confused by Jefferson leaving school. As a freshman, he looked like he could have become a late 1st rounder with 1-2 more years in school. Work on his left hand, develop a mid-range jumper, and he would have been in. I thought at the time, and still do, that his decision was driven as much by academic problems as anything basketball-related.
I still thought around April/May that he could have made the NBA this season, but over the summer it became clear that he didn't care. He showed up to the NBA combine all fat, the equivalent of showing up to a job interview wearing a tank top and chugging a beer. He showed no desire or effort during workouts or in pre-draft camps, a horrible sign for a guy whose best shot at making the NBA would have been as an energy/hustle guy off the bench.
First Kentucky loses to fucking VMI, and then UCLA loses to Michigan. Albeit, Michigan is a much "better" loss than VMI, but still...
Well, that remains to be seen. I am very very happy with that win though. My basketball team might not suck this year? That is extremely exciting.
I'd gloat about UCLA, but I'm trying to figure out how USC lost to a Seton Hall team that has only 7 players on scholarship. And why Demar DeRozan only played 20 minutes while scrubs like Keith Wilkinson and Marcus Simmons were in at crunch time. And why 7-footer Mamadou Diarra couldn't get a single minute while Seton Hall was grabbing 15 offensive rebounds.
is my school really primed for a victory this season? I should be paying more attention
haha just kidding guys
"God must be a tar-heels fan or else why'd he make the sky Carolina Blue"
Arch,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t_goGR39m2k
They're actually not bad. The Mountain West should come down to BYU and UNLV.
Probably a down year for them. They lost almost their whole team to the NBA and graduation. Sherron Collins has a good shot at making all-conference, but after that the roster gets thin and young real quick. Collins is the only guy who played 10+ minutes per game last year. Most of their seniors are at the walk-on level.
They'll still do alright, but they're a lot closer to mid-level teams like Texas A&M and Baylor than they are to Texas and Oklahoma.
2008, 2012, 2014 D&D "Rare With No Sauce" League Fantasy Football Champion!
Aren't you usually a Gopher?
Also, damn Michigan couldn't pull off the back to back huge upsets. But if they can find a third scoring option and start making their jumpers consistently, that might be a pretty good team. For the first time since the infamous rollover accident I have a little optimism.
Gotta give props to State (mostly Harden) however for getting a fifteen point deficit back down to four with a barrage of 3-pointers. I really didn't think they were capable of breaking 70 points.
UNC should rock, but the most fun story over here is Davidson--Stephen Curry is sick, and it was good to see them win even when Loyola held him to 0 points over 32 minutes.
Well that wasn't fun. Everything looked okay for most of the first half, but ASU is too deliberate on offense sometimes. Hopefully they'll be able to build from this one.
hurray!
This is a good day for anti-____ fans.
Conference play starts soon. How's everybody holding up so far?
I'd really like to see my team in the NCAA tournament for the first time in a decade.
yeah honestly watching Mario and Dwayne Wade is more exciting than watching this team
USC has looked terrible so far, and barely survived North Dakota State at home. I'm hoping for a 4th place finish in the Pac 10, whereas before the season I thought 2nd was possible.
DeRozan was projected as a top 5 draft pick coming out of HS? LOL.
OOC, nice to Michigan return to basketball relevance. They've been gone from the national picture for too long for such an important program.
Conversely, what a disaster Indiana has been since they fired Bob Knight.
It's not like they never reached the Final Four with Knight. And they did it without cheating.
They brought in a known cheater in Sampson, who unsurprisingly continued to cheat in Bloomington. And their last big recruit Eric Gordon, who is from Indiana, couldn't get out of town fast enough and has now levelled allegations of widespread drug use throughout the Hoosier basketball program.
Since Knight left, a school that had gone 50 years without a major NCAA violation now finds itself on 3 years probation, along with numerous self-imposed penalties.
I'm well aware that Sampson was not the best choice. Indiana is clearly a disaster since they hired him.
Davis got them to the damn championship game though.
And that was their only trip past the 2nd round in the last 8 years.
And when Knight's players had cycled out of IU, the guys Davis had recruited brought Indiana its first losing season since 1970. One of the reasons for Knight's firing was his lack of postseason success, yet under Knight the Hoosiers never failed to make the NCAA tournament for 2 consecutive seasons as they did under Davis.
And during which time, Texas Tech never failed to make the NCAA tournament for 2 consecutive seasons.