Bear Down Wildcats

Irish27 wrote:http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/bracketology

I would take this bracket in a heartbeat. Creighton as a 2 and Notre Dame as a 3? Bonus for breaking Jayhawk hearts again?

Irish27 wrote:http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basket ... acketology

Oh man I'm not interested in being in Kentucky's region, but I would LOVE if it that was the opening weekend pod. Another chance to beat Duke, and this time I'd get to see it in person.

Also-- CST if you're in this thread, I think you and I are going to be on edge all season long about whether we go to Sacramento or Salt Lake.

trying not to get too wrapped up in seedings at this point in the season, but wanted to ask - how does trier's return affect our placement under the new evaluation criteria? considering player absences and all, how much of a bump will the selection committee give us for single digit losses on neutral courts to butler & gonzaga without 'zo? we also didn't have PJC for the zags game. ideally, our team analytics will make a noticeable and sustained jump to receive a seeding edge over the zags.

prh wrote:

Irish27 wrote:http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basket ... acketology

Oh man I'm not interested in being in Kentucky's region, but I would LOVE if it that was the opening weekend pod. Another chance to beat Duke, and this time I'd get to see it in person.

Also-- CST if you're in this thread, I think you and I are going to be on edge all season long about whether we go to Sacramento or Salt Lake.

Lol, I feel you prh. if it's SLC at least we'll have you in the stands!

LOL, I know it hasn't been updated, but screw that ESPN bracket. Kentucky, Duke, Baylor and Louisville? No thanks.

http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basket ... acketology" target="_blank

Midwest:
1. Kansas
2. Arizona
3. Louisville
4. Creighton

Eh, not really feelin Indiana in the 2nd round

Main Event wrote:Eh, not really feelin Indiana in the 2nd round

You're joking right? They are the poorest of poor man's UCLA, and just lost their best player, and the only guy I would have been legitimately worried about stopping, for the season.

If we played Indiana in the tournament CSM would make Crean piss himself and we'd win by 15+

I think Bryant would be a load to handle for Dusan and I wasn't the biggest OG fan

Yea, I would take that bracket any day.

Interesting

Huh, why do this? To raise hype and competition?

I kinda like the big reveal, this seems to water it down.

Havent they typically done a mock selection around that time anyways? I think its good to get a baseline. Especially when it comes to some other selections over the years.

wat. do they mean the top 4 seeds as they see them right then and that they'll change?

Main Event wrote:I think Bryant would be a load to handle for Dusan and I wasn't the biggest OG fan

Fair point in the first point, but luckily w wouldn't have to pay Dusan much. Lauri would be fine on Bryant and we have the depth now to play that way.

On the second point, I think you're crazy. OG is a stud

ASUHATER! wrote:wat. do they mean the top 4 seeds as they see them right then and that they'll change?

Well of course dude, CMON

CalStateTempe wrote:Huh, why do this? To raise hype and competition?

I kinda like the big reveal, this seems to water it down.

They're trying to get casual sports fans to watch college basketball before Selection Sunday. This gives people an idea of who the top seeds are coming into the home stretch and gives them more reason to watch how the conference races and tournaments unfold.

I like it.

I get why they do it....I think it's stupid. But then again, any ranking outside of that is stupid.

Hurts the build up more than helps, IMO. Opens up a possible can of worms and may handcuff them too.

rgdeuce wrote:Hurts the build up more than helps, IMO.

Why?

rgdeuce wrote:Opens up a possible can of worms and may handcuff them too.

How?

seeding the tourney is a messy, imperfect process. throwing out "preview seedings" puts the selection committee in a position to have to defend why certain teams did / did not make the top 4 in feb, even if the rationale is qualitative af, then tethers them to it when they actually have to seed the brackets. it also creates a psychological anchor and sets fans up for a lotta grumblin and the committee up for a lotta 'splainin, imo.

Committee is going to be in a defensive posture either way. The Big Reveal is always followed by The Big Bitch. This is really no different than the weekly updates they do in college football ( and maybe it's leading up to that). Do we want that to be discontinued? Better for football to do the big reveal?

No way. This will jump-start chatter among the less fanatical fans. Smart move. And it will be the leading indicator of what they value, ending a lot of speculation on that front.

BTW, Seth Greenberg this morning, said Gonzaga will be No. 1 (after Tuesday upsets), but Arizona is currently the best team and has the best road win of the season.

gumby wrote:Committee is going to be in a defensive posture either way. The Big Reveal is always followed by The Big Bitch. This is really no different than the weekly updates they do in college football ( and maybe it's leading up to that). Do we want that to be discontinued? Better for football to do the big reveal?

No way. This will jump-start chatter among the less fanatical fans. Smart move. And it will be the leading indicator of what they value, ending a lot of speculation on that front.

BTW, Seth Greenberg this morning, said Gonzaga will be No. 1 (after Tuesday upsets), but Arizona is currently the best team and has the best road win of the season.

Money grab.

I bet it will be effective. College basketball has become a niche sport for the sophisticated, charming, smart, and attractive class of sports enthusiasts. And yet all those other people basically agree with us that March Madness is the greatest phenomenon in all of sports. Effort is needed to get more fans on board before March. Also, the media needs to be pushed to stop framing college basketball in terms of its relevance for the NBA. The NBA is for children who haven't been to college, and for trogs generally.

gumby wrote: BTW, Seth Greenberg this morning, said Gonzaga will be No. 1 (after Tuesday upsets), but Arizona is currently the best team and has the best road win of the season.

Didn't mention how deep we are with our guard play? Thrown under the bus again...

Chicat wrote:

rgdeuce wrote:Hurts the build up more than helps, IMO.

Why?

rgdeuce wrote:Opens up a possible can of worms and may handcuff them too.

How?

The reveal of the top seeds still plays a role in making Selection Sunday great. By showing a peek at your hand, it takes away some of the element of surprise/suspense. If I know my team is a lock at 1 and they handle business, I may be more inclined to get an errand done and check the interwebs when I get home to see who is in our region, and im certainly not concerned of who we pulled as a 16 seed since they never win. Whereas if I'm not so sure if we are a 1 or 2, I'm watching to see that, if we are a 2 seed which 15 is the one we should be worrying about and their brief analysis of that match up, and then getting to see who else is in our region. May not be speaking for us, but #1 seeds are also typically going to be the biggest fan bases, so you may lose a decent amount of viewership too.

In terms of cans of worms and handcuffing, you essentially trimmed off 4 months of the season when naming your #1. It's much easier to look at a body of 5 months' work to justify a team getting or not getting that top seed. Now you have 1 month, and if their minds change and there isn't much to justify it, you're probably handcuffed to your pick. An example being: Gonzaga is a 1 seed out west. They dont lose in that last month. Arizona was obviously a 2 or lower, they also dont lose in that period. Say we got our tough conference games out of the way early, so it is cruise control the rest of the conference season, we dont lose, we get a 1 seed for the conference tournament and end up playing a Utah after they upset UCLA and a short-handed Oregon team. But we are winning all those games by 15-20. It's tough to tell a Gonzaga team that, yea you were our #1 a month ago and yeah you didnt lose. Arizona has 2 losses but they face the tougher competition and looked a little better at the end of the year. The Gonzaga fan can reply, the tougher competition wasnt an issue when you said we were a 1 a month ago, and it wasn't like they had a really tough schedule in that month. "Well, they missed Trier for most of the season and he's back and..." "Well, Trier was back on February 11 when we were a 1 seed."

Just my opinion. Regardless, I'm an "if it isn't broke don't fix it person," so maybe I'm jaded. I hate the expanded tournament, feels cheap and forced, and to me, this feels cheap and forced because they are clearly copying the BCS hype model they have been using in college football for a long time.

rgdeuce wrote:

Chicat wrote:

rgdeuce wrote:Hurts the build up more than helps, IMO.

Why?

rgdeuce wrote:Opens up a possible can of worms and may handcuff them too.

How?

The reveal of the top seeds still plays a role in making Selection Sunday great. By showing a peek at your hand, it takes away some of the element of surprise/suspense. If I know my team is a lock at 1 and they handle business, I may be more inclined to get an errand done and check the interwebs when I get home to see who is in our region, and im certainly not concerned of who we pulled as a 16 seed since they never win. Whereas if I'm not so sure if we are a 1 or 2, I'm watching to see that, if we are a 2 seed which 15 is the one we should be worrying about and their brief analysis of that match up, and then getting to see who else is in our region. May not be speaking for us, but #1 seeds are also typically going to be the biggest fan bases, so you may lose a decent amount of viewership too.

In terms of cans of worms and handcuffing, you essentially trimmed off 4 months of the season when naming your #1. It's much easier to look at a body of 5 months' work to justify a team getting or not getting that top seed. Now you have 1 month, and if their minds change and there isn't much to justify it, you're probably handcuffed to your pick. An example being: Gonzaga is a 1 seed out west. They dont lose in that last month. Arizona was obviously a 2 or lower, they also dont lose in that period. Say we got our tough conference games out of the way early, so it is cruise control the rest of the conference season, we dont lose, we get a 1 seed for the conference tournament and end up playing a Utah after they upset UCLA and a short-handed Oregon team. But we are winning all those games by 15-20. It's tough to tell a Gonzaga team that, yea you were our #1 a month ago and yeah you didnt lose. Arizona has 2 losses but they face the tougher competition and looked a little better at the end of the year. The Gonzaga fan can reply, the tougher competition wasnt an issue when you said we were a 1 a month ago, and it wasn't like they had a really tough schedule in that month. "Well, they missed Trier for most of the season and he's back and..." "Well, Trier was back on February 11 when we were a 1 seed."

Just my opinion. Regardless, I'm an "if it isn't broke don't fix it person," so maybe I'm jaded. I hate the expanded tournament, feels cheap and forced, and to me, this feels cheap and forced because they are clearly copying the BCS hype model they have been using in college football for a long time.

I sympathize with what you say about the reveal, but that serves the fans who have lived and died with their teams and the ins and outs of comparative "best wins" and strengths of schedule in light of the night-before-Christmas kind of excitement of looking how my team's bracket will play out. It sounds like you think the preview of current 1-seeds deflates that experience of the moment of revelation a bit.

The problem is that it's only a minority of viewers who have been there since the pre-season, and since the off-season, typing their opinions on message boards. Most people don't watch the unfolding of the bracket on live television, and then write heartfelt posts of disagreement with the tourney committee. They look at the established bracket when they fill intheir predictions. If the sport is to expand its viewership, it might need to get build some anticipation among March Madness devotees ahead of March.

As for handcuffing, not sure I see it. A changed decision just fills out the narrative and makes more buzz. Who cares if Gonzaga or Arizona fans get their feelings hurt? Why would the committee have any problem whatsoever changing their minds based on more recent events that mainstream viewers will have been talking about. "Gonzaga lost! Arizona won the conference tourney!"

I think LH nails the dichotomy here.

It's always going to be about making the casual fan into a fanatic and the guy or girl who only tunes in for the tourney into a casual fan. They're not worried about me, a guy who has tens of thousands of message board posts and watches preseason exhibition games that start at 11pm and are shown in low definition. They've already got me. And I already know the top 4 seeds.

As far as the handcuff, I don't see it. In fact I think it makes for more interesting story lines if the rankings become fluid even though all things stay equal. You can imagine a scenario where a guy who didn't go to college and lives in a place with no geographical tie-in to a good team (such as NYC or rural areas in the west) could pick up a team as their newfound favorite BECAUSE they got jobbed. "I started liking Gonzaga because in '17 even though they were a one seed all year long they got passed over late in the year because those pretty boys from Arizona, who they already beat by the way, played a few good games..."

Longhorned wrote:

gumby wrote: BTW, Seth Greenberg this morning, said Gonzaga will be No. 1 (after Tuesday upsets), but Arizona is currently the best team and has the best road win of the season.

Didn't mention how deep we are with our guard play? Thrown under the bus again...

Yeah, praised frontcourt depth. Radio silence on backcourt. Also didn't mention:

Conference of Champions
Leader in attendance for three decades
ACE
Steeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeve Kerr
Luke Walton
Channing Frye
Richard Jefferson
1997 natty
Sean Miller's "Tonight Show" appearance.
Ray Smith's injuries
Parker being "the worst player on the best team."
Sonoran hot dogs
The meaning of "Bear Down"
Our unis -- which shocked me, because I figured he liked them since they're ugly

I suspect he's playing the long con. Build us up. If we don't win the natty, tear into Miller as an underachiever.

You guys both make good points. I was saying in terms of the committee having to answer questions to the sports media. In the past, there have been several instances where theyve been pressed for explanations and stumbled over their words/looked uncomfortable. Cant imagine they like being in that position as-is, I think this would just add to the likelihood of them having to explain/defend themselves even more.

Why is this different from football? They do "so far" rankings.

Get off my lawn, that's why.

I dunno, cheap and artificial hype when it's not needed? College basketball isn't the same as college football; the average person (not us) doesn't care about CBB until the March Madness show and when they can start filling out their brackets. Then there are a whole nother group of fans who watch their team play, or catch the occasional big matchup on TV. Football just is easier to follow, less games, once per week, way bigger audience, etc., and it was a build up for two spots (National title game) until they started the new (and still small) playoff system. Makes more sense. Doing this, four teams, out of a tournament of 68, ehh. It's just like, why? And if my points and worries above are ridiculous and unfounded, it's still a why? When February hits, rabid CBB fans can guess who are likely going to be the one seeds, or at least debatable. There are polls that assist with that too that for the most part, predict the 1 seeds. You know who to keep an eye on and know when they lose what the ramifications are. #2 Duke lost, #5 Kansas beat #6 Baylor, oooh. You know what that means. Not, Oh shit, they said Duke is going to be a 1 seed and Kansas isn't, oooooh.

Marketing. Oh, and you have some crabgrass.

Gilbertcat wrote:http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basket ... acketology

Midwest:
1. Kansas
2. Arizona
3. Louisville
4. Creighton

Only 4 Pac12 teams making the tourney? No respect or is that really all we deserve?

(I assume ESPN hasn't changed this even with the No. 1 seed upsets yesterday)

gumby wrote:Why is this different from football? They do "so far" rankings.

Football has far fewer games and so the jockeying is more important although I would even argue that it isn't needed in football. Basketball has many more games, chances for injuries or winning conference tournaments to shake things up and 66 teams or so that make the tournament whereas football only has 4.

My thought is that it is just a response to the intense interest and hurt feelings of the individual fan bases who need some sort of approval of how their team is doing or some "motivation" regardless of how insignificant the fan bases' feelings are in the process. The weekly bracketology has little to do with the final result other than the fact that some fans want to discuss how their team would do in the weekly bracket matchups or why their team is being shorted by the committee.

Why only complain about the committee after the big dance selection is made when now you have many more chances to complain about the committee's decision?

rgdeuce wrote:the average person (not us) doesn't care about CBB until the March Madness show and when they can start filling out their brackets.

That's obviously what they are trying to change.

http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/bracketology" target="_blank

Irish27 wrote:http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/bracketology

Jesus. Compare the #3, 4, 5 and 6 seed in the West bracket to the south:
Butler vs Kentucky
Purdue vs. UNC
Cincy vs WVU
Minnesota vs. Duke

Let's just say I'd much rather be on the other side, in the South.

dcZONAfan wrote:

Irish27 wrote:http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/bracketology

Jesus. Compare the #3, 4, 5 and 6 seed in the West bracket to the south:
Butler vs Kentucky
Purdue vs. UNC
Cincy vs WVU
Minnesota vs. Duke

Let's just say I'd much rather be on the other side, in the South.

Agreed. But It's just especially bad right now with 1 and 2 seed teams losing so much in the past couple days, and crowding the 3 and 4 lines. Time will fix it.

Longhorned wrote:

dcZONAfan wrote:

Irish27 wrote:http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/bracketology

Jesus. Compare the #3, 4, 5 and 6 seed in the West bracket to the south:
Butler vs Kentucky
Purdue vs. UNC
Cincy vs WVU
Minnesota vs. Duke

Let's just say I'd much rather be on the other side, in the South.

Agreed. But It's just especially bad right now with 1 and 2 seed teams losing so much in the past couple days, and crowding the 3 and 4 lines. Time will fix it.

That's what I was thinking. Plus I doubt they ship Kentucky, UNC and Duke out west where at least one would make the Sweet 16 and would have to play in San Jose, no matter how many more losses they incur. Those are fanbases that will fill arenas if the travel isn't too cumbersome.

http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basket ... acketology

Yes pls!

Irish27 wrote:http://www.cbssports.com/collegebasketball/bracketology

Fuck that

There is always that 1 region that is incredibly stacked, I just hope the committee finally throws us a bone

Exactly main event. Just give us the easiest bracket where the legs fall out for once. No one remembers the road, just the championship.

Throw AZ a bone.

CalStateTempe wrote:Exactly main event. Just give us the easiest bracket where the legs fall out for once. No one remembers the road, just the championship.

Throw AZ a bone.

Pretty sure people remember three number ones

You know what I'm talking about.

CalStateTempe wrote:You know what I'm talking about.

I suppose but I don't necessarily agree. If I remember some of the best games in the tournament not involving U of A most are before the final four.

Also not sure why we think at this point U of A deserves the easiest road to the final four.

PHXCATS wrote:

CalStateTempe wrote:You know what I'm talking about.

I suppose but I don't necessarily agree. If I remember some of the best games in the tournament not involving U of A most are before the final four.

Also not sure why we think at this point U of A deserves the easiest road to the final four.

If we stay West, we can get Zaga as a #1, which is less intimidating because we've already played them. From there, generally the West is decent because the top teams aren't usually western teams. The death region thus isn't usually the West.

Frankly, we got decent draws in 13-14 and 14-15, but hit a super hot Wisconsin team.

Seth Davis has the UofA as a #2 seed in the west in his top-16.

Irish27 wrote:Seth Davis has the UofA as a #2 seed in the west in his top-16.

He must have been asleep yesterday. Not that I don't think we can turn things around, but I figured getting destroyed woukd do something.

Irish27 wrote:Seth Davis has the UofA as a #2 seed in the west in his top-16.

On the CBS Saturday morning basketball show he had us as a #1 seed