Official Bracketology Thread

EastCoastCat · Post by **EastCoastCat** » Tue Mar 14, 2023 8:36 am

Beachcat97 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2023 7:59 am
EastCoastCat wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2023 6:32 am You know, everyone is dumping on Tennessee. I have a feeling they will surprise.
Is Tennessee completely healthy?

No not completely. They still don't have Zeigler but I believe the others will be available like Jones.

CardiacCats97 · Post by **CardiacCats97** » Tue Mar 14, 2023 8:37 am

Do you all do a BearDownWildcats bracket challenge?

Beachcat97 · Post by **Beachcat97** » Tue Mar 14, 2023 8:47 am

EastCoastCat wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2023 8:36 am
Beachcat97 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2023 7:59 am
EastCoastCat wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2023 6:32 am You know, everyone is dumping on Tennessee. I have a feeling they will surprise.
Is Tennessee completely healthy?
No not completely. They still don't have Zeigler but I believe the others will be available like Jones.

Think they're vulnerable, then. Tennessee wasn't quite as good as some expected this year, and Duke is peaking. This has nothing to do with Scheyer, imo. It's the freaking talent on that roster, which is Caliparian. When you have that many future NBA players on one team, they're always capable of winning a few games in the tourney.

EastCoastCat · Post by **EastCoastCat** » Tue Mar 14, 2023 8:55 am

It's just a hunch I have because the so-called pundits have been dissing them since the selection.

But I have been wrong many, many times before.

Macho Grande · Post by **Macho Grande** » Tue Mar 14, 2023 10:43 am

CardiacCats97 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2023 8:37 am Do you all do a BearDownWildcats bracket challenge?

It's been the "Mark Schlabach Memorial" group over at cbssports.com the past few years.

Alieberman · Post by **Alieberman** » Tue Mar 14, 2023 10:48 am

Macho Grande wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2023 10:43 am
CardiacCats97 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2023 8:37 am Do you all do a BearDownWildcats bracket challenge?
It's been the "Mark Schlabach Memorial" group over at cbssports.com the past few years.

I'll get it activated again and start a thread.

Here's the link:

https://picks.cbssports.com/college-bas ... etupInvite

ZagCatFan · Post by **ZagCatFan** » Tue Mar 14, 2023 11:04 am

Dana O’Neil at The Athletic has Zags vs Cats in Championship Game!

Timme vs Ballo

7 coaches on Cats came through Gonzaga…..dream matchup

Beachcat97 · Post by **Beachcat97** » Tue Mar 14, 2023 11:20 am

ZagCatFan wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2023 11:04 am Dana O’Neil at The Athletic has Zags vs Cats in Championship Game!

Timme vs Ballo

7 coaches on Cats came through Gonzaga…..dream matchup

So much potential for dramatic storylines this year:

Lloyd vs. Few
AZ vs. Miller
ucla vs. Gonzaga
AZ vs. Duke in the FF
AZ vs. Houston in the FF
Duke vs. Kentucky in E8 (unlikely but who knows)
How about an AZ/UConn national title game?

Alieberman · Post by **Alieberman** » Tue Mar 14, 2023 12:08 pm

Beachcat97 wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2023 11:20 am
ZagCatFan wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2023 11:04 am Dana O’Neil at The Athletic has Zags vs Cats in Championship Game!

Timme vs Ballo

7 coaches on Cats came through Gonzaga…..dream matchup
So much potential for dramatic storylines this year:

Lloyd vs. Few
AZ vs. Miller
ucla vs. Gonzaga
AZ vs. Duke in the FF
AZ vs. Houston in the FF
Duke vs. Kentucky in E8 (unlikely but who knows)
How about an AZ/UConn national title game?

Any scenario that has AZ FF is a good 1

Carcassdragger · Post by **Carcassdragger** » Tue Mar 14, 2023 1:15 pm

The West Region is super stacked. Seems like we're ok where we're at.

HiCat · Post by **HiCat** » Tue Mar 14, 2023 1:31 pm

First Look at Arizona Basketball opponent, the Princeton Tigers

https://zonazealots.com/2023/03/14/firs ... on-tigers/

Lute4God · Post by **Lute4God** » Tue Mar 14, 2023 4:03 pm

EastCoastCat wrote: ↑Tue Mar 14, 2023 6:32 am You know, everyone is dumping on Tennessee. I have a feeling they will surprise.

Zakai Zeigler out for the season (ACL) is a huge loss. That guy torched us 2 years in a row.

Postmaster · Post by **Postmaster** » Tue Mar 14, 2023 6:32 pm

Anyone know where a good place to watch games in Chandler is?
Saturday

azcat49 · Post by **azcat49** » Tue Mar 14, 2023 6:37 pm

East Valley cats usually meet at a place in old town Chandler for games. I would check their FB page for info

ZagCatFan · Post by **ZagCatFan** » Tue Mar 14, 2023 7:29 pm

https://www.ncaa.com/news/basketball-me ... mens-teams

Cats are one of the teams

azgreg · Post by **azgreg** » Wed Mar 15, 2023 5:06 pm

CardiacCats97 · Post by **CardiacCats97** » Wed Mar 15, 2023 5:44 pm

Glad his track record is just as bad as everyone else’s.

TheCat · Post by **TheCat** » Wed Mar 15, 2023 6:50 pm

I think a bunch of these are faked. I saw one where the Zags (playing Ariz) won it all from Obama.

U.P. Zona Fan · Post by **U.P. Zona Fan** » Wed Mar 15, 2023 7:04 pm

So, we are getting a pile of rain tomorrow then 2.5 feet of snow Friday and Saturday. So I'm punching off my work week baby!!!

Fishclamps · Post by **Fishclamps** » Thu Mar 16, 2023 8:59 am

Just snuck in my bracket at the last second, can't wait to be wrong about 90% of it!

Alieberman · Post by **Alieberman** » Thu Mar 16, 2023 9:09 am

TheCat wrote: ↑Wed Mar 15, 2023 6:50 pm I think a bunch of these are faked. I saw one where Arizona won it all from Obama.

That was from last year. He really did pick us to win it....

RondaeShimmy · Post by **RondaeShimmy** » Thu Mar 16, 2023 11:29 am

AZCatGirl · Post by **AZCatGirl** » Thu Mar 16, 2023 11:36 am

Howard has something to say about Biden's bracket lol.

For anyone with a provider login NCAA.com lets you watch all 4 games at once.

azgreg · Post by **azgreg** » Thu Mar 16, 2023 12:13 pm

EastCoastCat · Post by **EastCoastCat** » Thu Mar 16, 2023 12:33 pm

RondaeShimmy wrote: ↑Thu Mar 16, 2023 11:29 am

Oh shit, he hasn't been right once in his life. We are doomed.

SabinoDrifter · Post by **SabinoDrifter** » Thu Mar 16, 2023 12:38 pm

Greg Hanson's national champion in danger of losing in the first round...

azgreg · Post by **azgreg** » Thu Mar 16, 2023 4:33 pm

dovecanyoncat · Post by **dovecanyoncat** » Thu Mar 16, 2023 4:36 pm

Duke looking like Bama right now. Fuck my life.

ZagCatFan · Post by **ZagCatFan** » Fri Mar 17, 2023 2:49 am

. Arizona couldn’t overcome limitations against Princeton

Arizona was a team with real limitations entering a single-elimination NCAA Tournament. The Azuolas Tubelis-Oumar Ballo frontcourt was always ripe for a team that runs a five-out offensive scheme to be able to space out the Wildcats and take advantage of them. If you can pull the bigs away from the rim, they’re not good enough to guard in space. Kerr Kriisa entered the tournament with a shoulder injury, and without him at full strength, the team has no consistently threatening perimeter player off the bounce. That they even made it this far, finishing second in the Pac-12 and winning the league’s tournament, is a credit to Tommy Lloyd’s uptempo ball-screen continuity that feeds the bigs and creates open kickout 3s.

The records were close, but this was a drastically inferior team to last season’s Arizona group with real pressure points to be picked at and a lack of depth to adjust when opposing teams took away the top options. Mitch Henderson and the Princeton staff knew that, and devised an impressive plan to counter what Arizona does. They crowded Tubelis and Ballo on offense in the paint by collapsing down when the ball entered the post with timely double-teams. Collapsed the defensive glass to limit second-chance opportunities. They got three or four guys back in transition defense every time, and still out-rebounded Arizona on the offensive end of the court 10 to 7. Then on offense, they just continually picked at the scab, either pulling Tubelis and Ballo away from the rim with their bigs or isolating them one on one and forcing them to play tough post defense without help. This wasn’t a traditional “Princeton” attack. They assisted on just nine of their 26 made field goals. They saw matchups they felt they could take advantage of, and hammered them.

And on Arizona’s side, when teams attacked Tubelis and Ballo, they didn’t have a recourse. They have no ability to play five-out or go small on their end defensively. They can’t switch actions regularly. The closest thing they have to a stretch-four is Pelle Larsson, and he’s not that — he’s a true wing. I’ll write about this upset more in detail later this weekend, but more than anything, this Arizona exit was a roster construction issue that was waiting to happen. They need to solve the issue of lineup versatility this offseason. They were too easy to scheme this season, which is why they lost some truly dumbfounding games despite their talent level, including defeats to Washington State, Utah and Stanford. — Sam Vecenie

From The Athletic

SabinoDrifter · Post by **SabinoDrifter** » Fri Mar 17, 2023 6:08 am

Pretty fair summary.

Merkin · Post by **Merkin** » Fri Mar 17, 2023 7:49 am

Yep, and please pass on the extended version when he writes it.

ghostwhitehorse · Post by **ghostwhitehorse** » Sat Mar 18, 2023 7:22 am

Them song for everyones brackets:

Postmaster · Post by **Postmaster** » Sat Mar 18, 2023 9:27 pm

Nothing against him personally, but I’m annoyed seeing Quinerly win with Alabama.

EastCoastCat · Post by **EastCoastCat** » Thu Mar 23, 2023 2:42 pm

Arizona has beat a quarter of the teams that made the S16.

Let that sink in…

Beachcat97 · Post by **Beachcat97** » Thu Mar 23, 2023 3:21 pm

EastCoastCat wrote: ↑Thu Mar 23, 2023 2:42 pm Arizona has beat a quarter of the teams that made the S16.

Let that sink in…

It gets crazier: we beat three of them in tournament games this season.

PHXCATS · Post by **PHXCATS** » Thu Mar 23, 2023 5:40 pm

EastCoastCat wrote: ↑Thu Mar 23, 2023 2:42 pm Arizona has beat a quarter of the teams that made the S16.

Let that sink in…

Exactly why you have to see it for what it is. A bad game on the wrong day

Irish27 · Post by **Irish27** » Wed Apr 05, 2023 6:49 pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BTuE_HW ... ssedGinger

PHXCATS · Post by **PHXCATS** » Wed Apr 05, 2023 6:51 pm

Arizona as a 1 seed?

But I am told to worry about not even making the dance by some……

CardiacCats97 · Post by **CardiacCats97** » Wed Apr 05, 2023 8:00 pm

PHXCATS wrote: ↑Wed Apr 05, 2023 6:51 pm Arizona as a 1 seed?

But I am told to worry about not even making the dance by some……

You weren’t told to worry about anything. Someone else talked about their own worry and you jumped all over it and won’t let it go probably because your innate need to feel better about yourself by acting superior on the internet won’t let you, but that’s just my amateur opinion. Your own therapist may have other thoughts.

Irish27 · Post by **Irish27** » Tue Apr 25, 2023 10:25 am

https://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story ... redictions

KillerKlown · Post by **KillerKlown** » Tue Apr 25, 2023 11:05 am

As of now that's awfully generous.

Postmaster · Post by **Postmaster** » Tue Apr 25, 2023 12:20 pm

Do they know ZU left?

Merkin · Post by **Merkin** » Tue Apr 25, 2023 12:26 pm

Arizona doesn't even have enough scholarship players to scrimmage. Better hit up the managers and rec center players.

Postmaster · Post by **Postmaster** » Tue Apr 25, 2023 9:15 pm

This is way too early, but I got an email about season tickets today.

U.P. Zona Fan · Post by **U.P. Zona Fan** » Wed Apr 26, 2023 7:43 am

Irish27 wrote: ↑Tue Apr 25, 2023 10:25 am https://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story ... redictions

6 Pac 12 teams in there?????????

That is NUTS!!

Irish27 · Post by **Irish27** » Tue May 02, 2023 7:40 am

https://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story ... redictions

Postmaster · Post by **Postmaster** » Tue May 02, 2023 5:55 pm

U.P. Zona Fan wrote: ↑Wed Apr 26, 2023 7:43 am
Irish27 wrote: ↑Tue Apr 25, 2023 10:25 am https://www.espn.com/espn/feature/story ... redictions
6 Pac 12 teams in there?????????

That is NUTS!!

Maybe they meant the conference tournament

Irish27 · Post by **Irish27** » Sat Jul 01, 2023 6:59 pm

#3 seed.
https://www.cbssports.com/college-baske ... cketology/

TheCat · Post by **TheCat** » Sat Jul 01, 2023 8:04 pm

Interesting. We will have already played 3 of the number 1 seeds. That is a clue how hard our schedule is.

EastCoastCat · Post by **EastCoastCat** » Sun Jul 02, 2023 7:41 am

As Merkin said I believe Lute would be proud.

Love scheduling tough non-conference opponents because it’s not only fun to watch, but it also raises our national exposure. Plus we always seem to play well in those games and even losses don’t ding us come tournament seeding time.

We should always fear no one in the country.

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