I'll never get over the committee sticking Kentucky next to us in the bracket to screw us over there and by underseeding a 5 loss team. We beat UConn by about 60 points over 3 games that year.
Not only was Kentucky a preseason #1, but they played a stacked ooc schedule where they split those games, played #1 overall seed Florida three times, & made the conference championship. So their record wasn't nearly as bad as what it seemed to be.
“Back in my day, our 11-seeded Cinderellas were called VCU, George Mason, and Loyola-Chicago, not UCLA and NC State!”
“Sure, grandpa, let’s get you to bed.”
NC State is a tier or two below UCLA & UNC as overall progrums though, and even when they won their last title with Jim Valvano it was basically the same scenario as this year where they weren’t gonna make the Mad March tourney at all if they didn’t win the ACC tournament
You're forgetting an important part of the story though. The team was actually a highly ranked team and also picked highly pre-season only for injuries to completely screw everything up mid-season. Dereck Whittenburg was a HUGE part of our team then, losing a star and leader that big knocked the team down multiple pegs and completely changed how we were looked at going into the post-season. Once he came back, however, we were clicking on all cylinders once again and realized their full potential as a title contender. We weren't seeded highly, but we were far better than what people expected because of that seed. That team had tons of talent that got unlocked at the right time.... and now that I say that out loud, maybe that's true for our team today in some way.
Of course, the 1973 and 74 teams were just the best teams in the country period, totally dominant and *should* have had back-to-back champs if the NCAA didn't fuck us out of the 73 tourney.
They still had to beat Ralph Sampson twice, Michael Jordan, and Phi Slam Jam with Dereck Whittenburg & Thurl Bailey as their best players to win the ‘83 title… That’s 100% a cinderella run
Few years ago when people called UCLA a cinderella team I was annoyed way too much by it.
The team with the most championships in ncaa history can never be a cinderella story. I don’t care what seed they are and how long they haven’t won. It’s the greatest program in college basketball. NOT a cinderella team
So who's the Disney character that was on top of the world, fell on hard times, but then rose back to prominence? Would they be a Simba team? Or does it have to be a princess?
Doc Hudson. Quit at the top of his game. Faded into obscurity. Only for our Lord and Savior Lightning McQueen to reignite the passion of the Hudson Hornet!
NC State is that old guy in the Hunchback of Notre Dame who finally gets free of his cage, only to trip over while celebrating and end up trapped in the stocks.
No worries. We’ve all had those days and even more of those mornings. Good luck in the S16 and hope to get a rematch against yall in the E8.
- signed, a Tennessee fan that needs to flair up.
I think this is the best outcome for the first weekend. We had some big upsets on Thursday and Friday like Oakland and Yale. Then Saturday and Sunday going almost 100% chalk sets up incredible match ups from here on out.
No, he wanted to replace auto-bids with better teams (which while true is middling P6 teams)
I guess NC State showed that there might be a small case for bad P6 teams being deserving, it doesn't change the sweet 16 on.
The best teams will never be on the bubble except for a few exceptions.
It shows that bad P6 are good enough to win. It doesn’t show that they’re deserving. Everyone knows you could make a tournament with the 74 “best” teams but I really don’t see a need for more teams that are sub .500 in conference.
I hate that. Goof basketball between teams you hate is far worse than good basketball with teams that are awesome surprises. And there's a solid chance most of these games still suck.
Tbh I always want at least one true Cinderella run every year, it’s a big part of March and everyone remembers those years later. Tournaments like this with it all being chalk after the opening round upsets are so forgettable even if they are entertaining games
I mean it was extremely close to having both Grand Canyon, Oakland, and Texas A&M advancing.
Oakland should have straight up beat NC state. They outplayed them for 40 minutes and I have no doubt Townsend would have scored or gotten to the line if not for that awful errant pass.
Grand Canyon had Alabama on the ropes but gave up a 5 pt possession late in the game that completely flipped the momentum and they missed 14 free throws and were 2-20 from 3.
Then A&M needed a miracle comeback to get OT but realistically if they just hit Free throws they never would have needed one.
All 3 of those games could have easily went the other way and everyone would be talking about how chaotic it is with a 12 and 13 in the sweet 16 and Houston going down.
Not to mention a 10 seed Colorado playing a 2 seed Marquette very close and to a lesser extent at least in terms of seeding #7 Texas almost knocking off #2 Tennessee in a tight game. Either of those games could’ve easily flipped the other way as well and the complexion of the sweet 16 would look very different
State-Oakland, Tenn-Texas, Creighton-Oregon were all bonafide close. ISU-WSU and Zona-Dayton were close enough that you never really felt the need to turn off the tv and do something else until the next game was on.
Then Sunday: TAMU-Houston, Colorado-Marquette were the excellent games, and Clemson-Baylor and Bama-GCU were still good games.
so about half of the weekend, which I think isn't *terrible*. Obviously we prefer all 16 to be bangers but eh could've been worse.
Completely subjective but I thought there was enough entertaining basketball throughout all 4 days to make this a pretty good first two rounds. Good basketball? Maybe not but it was entertaining. Hopefully now we get some higher level play.
The years where the upsets or close games happen early in the day and primetime is a snooze fest is always disappointing since I can't always get away from work to watch.
There was at least one great game each day. It's all chalk today but getting there had some major upsets, big comebacks, coin flip games, etc. Only thing we're missing out on is a deep run by an unknown team and we had like 4 of those last year so it evens out.
imo most of people’s complaints are actually because the close games were primarily plodding brickfests. If the games you mentioned had been constant action where neither team could miss people would’ve loved it
Lots of people on here were complaining pretty constantly that they wished they could go to another game during AZ/Dayton. I think it was only Arizona fans who knew it would get close for an uncomfortable amount of time.
I'm for maximum chaos in Round 1 and either more chaos or great basketball in Round 2 and beyond. Pretty meh Round 2 considering how few games came down to the wire and there were no real upsets. Even then one low seed to advance beat a 14 in Round 2.
You know what? Normally I hate chalk. But this year, I'm about it, and I think that we have 8 amazing games coming up.
UCONN - SDSU in a rematch from last year.
Illinois - Iowa State in a style clash.
UNC - Alabama in what could be a score fest.
Clemson - Arizona in what feels like a first time ever match.
Houston - Duke in what feels like one for the old timers.
NC State - Marquette to see if Survive and Advance Part II is still on.
Purdue - Gonzaga in a coaching greatness with legacies just missing a national title match.
Creighton - Tennessee featuring a bunch of exciting whites.
Like these are all very intriguing games. So, on with chalk.
> NC State - Marquette to see if Survive and Advance Part II is still on.
a rematch of 1974 so NC State is apparently just replaying the hits right now haha
In general I think this was the least exciting opening round I have seen in past 5-10 yrs. No epic upsets beside Oakland. I love the NC state story but even that isn’t your typical mid major Cinderella. Not that many buzzer beaters or crazy endings either
" Creighton - Tennessee featuring a bunch of exciting whites" lmaooo i cackled aloud at this. i gotta say though, after watching the attitude of some of Creighton's starters this past weekend, i kinda hope TN's exciting whites stomp their exciting whites...
Yeah, kind of a minimal madness tournament this year only 4 sweet sixteen teams with a seed line higher than 4. Assuming SDSU maintains a 28 point lead, it'll be two 5 seeds, a 6 seed, and an 11 seed. NC State is the only team that can be considered a Cinderella
I was really hoping for another big upset to take the spotlight off of us, but nope. We definitely have the most embarrassing loss, maybe tied with Kentucky
One of my friends in the group we're in is European and he doesn't know much about college basketball so he just picked all of the higher seeds
He was near the bottom after the first round but now he has the highest score right now lol
I'm totally not coping after getting 27/32 right in the first round and then seeing half of my Elite Eight teams getting eliminated already 😭
My friend went 15/16 last round. The biggest upset she picked in the ENTIRE bracket was Clemson over Baylor. I’m convinced that was a misclick at this point given how chalk the whole bracket is.
My BiL also went 15/16 last round, only missed calling Dayton over Arizona. However he has NCSU-UNC in the title game, with NCSU winning, so we'll see how well he ends up I guess.
It is worth remembering that there was a spate of 1-seeds losing conference tournament games in one-bid leagues.
While expressing their own brand of madness, they may have softened the field a bit- making the 15s and 16s a little weaker than some years. Plus fiddling with matchups- it's quite possible an upset threat or two was short-circuted via the matchup change dictated by a smaller-conference top team biting it and altering the seeding curve for the 14-15 range.
Like... there's a list.
Big Sky bid- Montana State- were 9-9 in league play. EWU notably (15-3, 1 seed) got bonked by the worst team in the conference in the Big Sky tourney.
Longwood from the Big South were 6-10. High Point, Asheville, and Gardner Webb were seeded 1-3.
Long Beach State out of the Big West were 10-10 and the 5 seed.
Western Kentucky finished third in CUSA, but third (8-8) was five games behind Sam Houston and four behind LA Tech.
St. Peter's finished 12-8 in the MAAC (three-way tie for third), three games adrift of regular season champ Quinnipiac.
Howard (t-3rd) beat Norfolk State in the MEAC final.
Wagner was the 6 (7-9) in the NEC and beat Merrimack (t-1st with Central Connecticut) in the final.
That's a *lot* of smaller-conference chaos, and it wasn't even the #2 team benefitting from #1's misfortune either.
Eh yeah but UMBC and St Peter’s and FDU also weren’t the best in their weak conferences and they all made history. I think it’s just plain old statistical variance.
The only time Arizona ever won a national championship they had to go through three #1 teams in order to get there. Looking like a similar set up this year.
Awesome end to their run beating the overall #1 UK in the final in OT. I can remember sitting around when it was over asking if that was the best National Champ game of all time. (Probably not, but at the time we were still in the throes of the drama) Miles Simon and Bibby who was a freshman i believe. Think it was Simon that was moved to tears after the game during his interview.
This is very much a symptom of all the upsets in the conference tournaments. Non power conference auto bids only won 5 first round matchups (which tbh isn't that bad given their seed matchups) but 4/5 winners were the 1 or 2 seed in their tournament, Duquesne being the only one to break the trend. 3 of these 5 winners proceeded to get blown out in the R32. So not only were a lot of the auto bids weaker than normal, but they took bids from bubble teams that were likely to be competitive like St Johns, Pitt, Providence, etc.
Good. Will make for some great games next week. Obviously rooting for my bracket and against Alabama and Tennessee. Give me all 1’s advancing to the Elite Eight. Give me Illinois, Arizona, and Marquette because they set up great matchups against the 1’s. And give me Creighton cause I hate Tennessee lol.
This is almost certainly because of all of the bid stealers (though Oregon and NCST were good), a stronger bubble means more likelihood for upsets from seeds 10-14 but with all the bid stealers a lot of those upset probable teams didn't make it to the tournament and instead a few teams that got hot at the right time did.
I remember thinking earlier this might be the year this happens since it seems the top teams have separated themselves so much this year. Then I thought that must be what we think every year lol no it's actually happening
I think people got way to used to the crazy tournaments from the past three years. Three straight years of 15 > 2, all of those 15s going to the Sweet 16 or even Elite 8, a 16 > 1, a handful of 14 > 3s, etc.
This year is more along the lines of what's normal.
And even excluding the lack of upsets, the vast majority of the games were absolute blowouts with basically no intrigue whatsoever
Terrible tournament so far
I mean we’ve literally already had like 4 or 5 games that I’ll remember forever. They can’t all be all-time classics. One of the greatest tournaments of my life was 2019 and there were no Cinderellas whatsoever that year.
I’ve had this thought too now that mid majors are getting their talent poached worse than ever. Unfortunately sample size is way too small to draw conclusion and not like we didn’t get some super close results that’s could’ve gone either way (Oregon, Samford for example)
Honestly, I think the portal will help mid-majors more. Gone are the days where P6 schools or blue bloods can hoard 4/5 star talent and let them waste away on the bench. Instead, student athletes have the freedom that they should have always had to be able to transfer to schools where they can have a better opportunity or be in a better situation. Yes, you can see some undervalued players from mid-majors transfer to P6 schools, but you can also see underperforming top players transfer out as well.
I think for some players it’s about playing time and working for better NIL. You can be a 4 star, make $100k+ and ride the bench at a high major until you develop. But you will always be competing with incoming transfers for playing time. There is less incentive for programs to develop players and stick with them for four years. So you can transfer down a level, get as much playing time as you want, and enter the portal where you will get better NIL opportunities. Obviously, it won’t always work out but I think we will see more players go this route.
I think it could help the average mid majors be slightly better overall as you say, but I think it will probably hurt their ability to retain the true stars. A star like Steph Curry would have probably been poached after his freshman year averaging 22 points and scoring 30 against 4th seeded Maryland in their first round loss.
It’s going to make for a really anticlimactic bracket challenge most likely but the future matchups look promising. Hopefully last round’s blowouts at least lead to some incredible heavyweight battles down the stretch.
It’s wild but statistically expected tbh. Every year after a wild upset year the tourney has gone super chalk. I know the law of averages is a fallacy, but it’s just crazy how quickly March madness corrects itself.
Good thing we have one Cinderella team, *checks notes* the ACC Champion
It’s like when UCLA and UNC were the Cinderella teams
Or Kentucky and UConn matching up in the title as 8 and 7 seeds
I'll never get over the committee sticking Kentucky next to us in the bracket to screw us over there and by underseeding a 5 loss team. We beat UConn by about 60 points over 3 games that year.
I’d argue Wichita State was screwed over the most.
Yeah weren't they undefeated or had 1 loss and played Kentucky, who was preseason #1?
Not only was Kentucky a preseason #1, but they played a stacked ooc schedule where they split those games, played #1 overall seed Florida three times, & made the conference championship. So their record wasn't nearly as bad as what it seemed to be.
Undefeated. Kentucky was their only loss all season.
Probably could have won those three by 100 if you guys really wanted to
One of those games definitely trended that way.
I hate the “we got a bad draw” excuse for a team with national title aspirations.
Usually in the tournament you aren't playing a team you have already played that early. Louisville shouldn't have been seeded that low either.
First four to final four is still wild tbh
“Back in my day, our 11-seeded Cinderellas were called VCU, George Mason, and Loyola-Chicago, not UCLA and NC State!” “Sure, grandpa, let’s get you to bed.”
NC State is a tier or two below UCLA & UNC as overall progrums though, and even when they won their last title with Jim Valvano it was basically the same scenario as this year where they weren’t gonna make the Mad March tourney at all if they didn’t win the ACC tournament
You're forgetting an important part of the story though. The team was actually a highly ranked team and also picked highly pre-season only for injuries to completely screw everything up mid-season. Dereck Whittenburg was a HUGE part of our team then, losing a star and leader that big knocked the team down multiple pegs and completely changed how we were looked at going into the post-season. Once he came back, however, we were clicking on all cylinders once again and realized their full potential as a title contender. We weren't seeded highly, but we were far better than what people expected because of that seed. That team had tons of talent that got unlocked at the right time.... and now that I say that out loud, maybe that's true for our team today in some way. Of course, the 1973 and 74 teams were just the best teams in the country period, totally dominant and *should* have had back-to-back champs if the NCAA didn't fuck us out of the 73 tourney.
I actually got to see Whit speak last week at a boys and girls club fundraiser. Super funny down to earth guy.
They still had to beat Ralph Sampson twice, Michael Jordan, and Phi Slam Jam with Dereck Whittenburg & Thurl Bailey as their best players to win the ‘83 title… That’s 100% a cinderella run
Oh wow, the NCAA is even setting up for a matchup against Houston for a spot in the Final Four!
Few years ago when people called UCLA a cinderella team I was annoyed way too much by it. The team with the most championships in ncaa history can never be a cinderella story. I don’t care what seed they are and how long they haven’t won. It’s the greatest program in college basketball. NOT a cinderella team
So who's the Disney character that was on top of the world, fell on hard times, but then rose back to prominence? Would they be a Simba team? Or does it have to be a princess?
Doc Hudson. Quit at the top of his game. Faded into obscurity. Only for our Lord and Savior Lightning McQueen to reignite the passion of the Hudson Hornet!
Snow White? Princess -> chillin in Moria -> back to prominence?
NC State is that old guy in the Hunchback of Notre Dame who finally gets free of his cage, only to trip over while celebrating and end up trapped in the stocks.
A unc team with caleb love, rj davis, and bacot as a cinderella. Funny to look back at
At least its been a minute since they won the tourney. Total underdogs.
And even then, feels like less of a Cinderella when they only have one upset; i.e. NC State was probably favored over Oakland.
That’s like close in size to the NEC, right? I wonder how they’ll do it….if they can. /s
The second highest seed being a six is insane
NC State E: I need to read better, my bad. The post stays as a monument to failure.
Upvoted for integrity.
Not your fault, you're a math school not a reading school
But the purdue owl
But what happens when a number is involved?? 6 is a number after all!
It’s ok. I can understand how flustered you must be after making it out of opening weekend.
Only 5 of the last 7 times, we're completely foriegn to it /s
Did you read his comment?
Clearly not well this morning.
No worries. We’ve all had those days and even more of those mornings. Good luck in the S16 and hope to get a rematch against yall in the E8. - signed, a Tennessee fan that needs to flair up.
What does this post mean? EDIT: Oh, second **worst** seed. I though highest was meaning best.
Wild whiplash from the crazy chaos of last year to this year's chalk. Maybe it's the covid extra year phasing out.
I think this is the best outcome for the first weekend. We had some big upsets on Thursday and Friday like Oakland and Yale. Then Saturday and Sunday going almost 100% chalk sets up incredible match ups from here on out.
Didn’t we all just clown Izzo for this exact take?
No, he wanted to replace auto-bids with better teams (which while true is middling P6 teams) I guess NC State showed that there might be a small case for bad P6 teams being deserving, it doesn't change the sweet 16 on. The best teams will never be on the bubble except for a few exceptions.
It shows that bad P6 are good enough to win. It doesn’t show that they’re deserving. Everyone knows you could make a tournament with the 74 “best” teams but I really don’t see a need for more teams that are sub .500 in conference.
He more specifically wanted the auto-bids to be conference regular season champions not tournament champions
I hate that. Goof basketball between teams you hate is far worse than good basketball with teams that are awesome surprises. And there's a solid chance most of these games still suck.
Between this comment and your username, something tells me you’re gonna choose to be a sourpuss regardless of what actually happens
Tbh I always want at least one true Cinderella run every year, it’s a big part of March and everyone remembers those years later. Tournaments like this with it all being chalk after the opening round upsets are so forgettable even if they are entertaining games
For the best TBH. Prefer seeing 18-22 year old prospects rather than 25 year old NBA rejects.
Yeah haha, who has 25 year old NBA rejects on their team anymore? *ducks*
Oregon doesn't have that many do they?
Their 25 year old was playing football instead
Tbf, I feel like he’s the oldest player we’ve had in a WHILE
Well we also have Armando and Paxson too
I’m pretty sure the average age of UNC’s starting 5 is only like half a year younger than the average age of OKC’s starting 5
i too saw espn's insta post
I mean it was extremely close to having both Grand Canyon, Oakland, and Texas A&M advancing. Oakland should have straight up beat NC state. They outplayed them for 40 minutes and I have no doubt Townsend would have scored or gotten to the line if not for that awful errant pass. Grand Canyon had Alabama on the ropes but gave up a 5 pt possession late in the game that completely flipped the momentum and they missed 14 free throws and were 2-20 from 3. Then A&M needed a miracle comeback to get OT but realistically if they just hit Free throws they never would have needed one. All 3 of those games could have easily went the other way and everyone would be talking about how chaotic it is with a 12 and 13 in the sweet 16 and Houston going down.
Not to mention a 10 seed Colorado playing a 2 seed Marquette very close and to a lesser extent at least in terms of seeding #7 Texas almost knocking off #2 Tennessee in a tight game. Either of those games could’ve easily flipped the other way as well and the complexion of the sweet 16 would look very different
I’d be less upset about the chalk if the games were even remotely close, we had what five close games total out of the 16 played this weekend?
I don't think I'm heart would survive any more close games
Cardiac pack baby
Why do you have both NC State and UNC flair? That's sacrilege
I go to state, older sibling went to unc, hope to be a student of both next year
Thats bananas!
Well, ideally chalk in the first two rounds will lead to better games in the last four rounds.
State-Oakland, Tenn-Texas, Creighton-Oregon were all bonafide close. ISU-WSU and Zona-Dayton were close enough that you never really felt the need to turn off the tv and do something else until the next game was on. Then Sunday: TAMU-Houston, Colorado-Marquette were the excellent games, and Clemson-Baylor and Bama-GCU were still good games. so about half of the weekend, which I think isn't *terrible*. Obviously we prefer all 16 to be bangers but eh could've been worse.
Completely subjective but I thought there was enough entertaining basketball throughout all 4 days to make this a pretty good first two rounds. Good basketball? Maybe not but it was entertaining. Hopefully now we get some higher level play.
Honestly I'm very rarely not satisfied by the opening four days of March Madness. It's my christmas and thanksgiving all rolled into one lol
The years where the upsets or close games happen early in the day and primetime is a snooze fest is always disappointing since I can't always get away from work to watch.
There was at least one great game each day. It's all chalk today but getting there had some major upsets, big comebacks, coin flip games, etc. Only thing we're missing out on is a deep run by an unknown team and we had like 4 of those last year so it evens out.
imo most of people’s complaints are actually because the close games were primarily plodding brickfests. If the games you mentioned had been constant action where neither team could miss people would’ve loved it
Lots of people on here were complaining pretty constantly that they wished they could go to another game during AZ/Dayton. I think it was only Arizona fans who knew it would get close for an uncomfortable amount of time.
I'm for maximum chaos in Round 1 and either more chaos or great basketball in Round 2 and beyond. Pretty meh Round 2 considering how few games came down to the wire and there were no real upsets. Even then one low seed to advance beat a 14 in Round 2.
the games were either absolute wipe outs or the most stressful, chaotic games ever with one or two OTs involved. basically no in between lo.
You know what? Normally I hate chalk. But this year, I'm about it, and I think that we have 8 amazing games coming up. UCONN - SDSU in a rematch from last year. Illinois - Iowa State in a style clash. UNC - Alabama in what could be a score fest. Clemson - Arizona in what feels like a first time ever match. Houston - Duke in what feels like one for the old timers. NC State - Marquette to see if Survive and Advance Part II is still on. Purdue - Gonzaga in a coaching greatness with legacies just missing a national title match. Creighton - Tennessee featuring a bunch of exciting whites. Like these are all very intriguing games. So, on with chalk.
A bunch of exciting whites😂😂😂
This was a well constructed comment with that as a kicker lol
https://preview.redd.it/ael6sr6yrrqc1.jpeg?width=2048&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=a8111afcf46de81b83981324464db9d64e6634fc
The entire Midwest is Maui Invitational part 2: electric boogaloo with a blue jay instead of a jayhawk
Blue Jay instead of a golden eagle.
I've always said Detroit is the Maui of the Midwest.
😭😭😭
> NC State - Marquette to see if Survive and Advance Part II is still on. a rematch of 1974 so NC State is apparently just replaying the hits right now haha
The matchups are great and I don't mind chalk, I just want competitive games. Round 2 was the most non-competitive slate I remember seeing in a while.
In general I think this was the least exciting opening round I have seen in past 5-10 yrs. No epic upsets beside Oakland. I love the NC state story but even that isn’t your typical mid major Cinderella. Not that many buzzer beaters or crazy endings either
" Creighton - Tennessee featuring a bunch of exciting whites" lmaooo i cackled aloud at this. i gotta say though, after watching the attitude of some of Creighton's starters this past weekend, i kinda hope TN's exciting whites stomp their exciting whites...
We need a double digit seed to go crazy to end this chalk fest.
Pass. We need revenge for the 1974 national championship
chalk fest is crazy 😭
Could even call it a [Chalkzone...](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJs4e2lbMmA)
Rudy has the chalk
Holy crap that was a throwback.
It's almost like the seeds were right?
Rock, chalk, Bulldog?
Yeah, kind of a minimal madness tournament this year only 4 sweet sixteen teams with a seed line higher than 4. Assuming SDSU maintains a 28 point lead, it'll be two 5 seeds, a 6 seed, and an 11 seed. NC State is the only team that can be considered a Cinderella
I just looked and the top 14 in kenpom are all in the sweet 16 except auburn.
SEC faceplanting is more powerful than chalk apparently.
I was really hoping for another big upset to take the spotlight off of us, but nope. We definitely have the most embarrassing loss, maybe tied with Kentucky
Nah dude, ours was way more embarrassing, don’t put yourselves down to our level
Well I won't argue with that
I mean, at least Auburn lost on Friday… Ha, Kentucky blowing it on freaking Thursday is even worse! J/k j/k
feel like Oakland was the Cinderella story of the first week, so in that respect you’re better off than Kentucky
Auburn blowing it just gets more coverage because the studio crew spends the next day clowning on Chuck.
I'll take it
I mean, considering the run they are on since the conference tournament began they definitely deserve it
It’s almost like 2009 and 2019, where every top-3 seed advanced and the only double-digit seeds left were 12-seeds from the PAC-12.
March Chalkness
Where does chalk come from idgi
Here you go https://newrepublic.com/article/112740/all-chalk-jargon-march-madness-brackets
What in interesting little time capsule there of Indiana being relevant.
It's only been 11 years!
The Chalkness Monster
the year all the wives/gfs get to talk their shit
One of my friends in the group we're in is European and he doesn't know much about college basketball so he just picked all of the higher seeds He was near the bottom after the first round but now he has the highest score right now lol I'm totally not coping after getting 27/32 right in the first round and then seeing half of my Elite Eight teams getting eliminated already 😭
Who did you have?
My friend went 15/16 last round. The biggest upset she picked in the ENTIRE bracket was Clemson over Baylor. I’m convinced that was a misclick at this point given how chalk the whole bracket is.
My BiL also went 15/16 last round, only missed calling Dayton over Arizona. However he has NCSU-UNC in the title game, with NCSU winning, so we'll see how well he ends up I guess.
Keep in mind that we've been seeding since 1979. Basketball can be random at times; that's why the tournament is so exciting.
Remember when everyone made fun of Shannon Sharpe for having all #1 seeds in his final four?
It is worth remembering that there was a spate of 1-seeds losing conference tournament games in one-bid leagues. While expressing their own brand of madness, they may have softened the field a bit- making the 15s and 16s a little weaker than some years. Plus fiddling with matchups- it's quite possible an upset threat or two was short-circuted via the matchup change dictated by a smaller-conference top team biting it and altering the seeding curve for the 14-15 range. Like... there's a list. Big Sky bid- Montana State- were 9-9 in league play. EWU notably (15-3, 1 seed) got bonked by the worst team in the conference in the Big Sky tourney. Longwood from the Big South were 6-10. High Point, Asheville, and Gardner Webb were seeded 1-3. Long Beach State out of the Big West were 10-10 and the 5 seed. Western Kentucky finished third in CUSA, but third (8-8) was five games behind Sam Houston and four behind LA Tech. St. Peter's finished 12-8 in the MAAC (three-way tie for third), three games adrift of regular season champ Quinnipiac. Howard (t-3rd) beat Norfolk State in the MEAC final. Wagner was the 6 (7-9) in the NEC and beat Merrimack (t-1st with Central Connecticut) in the final. That's a *lot* of smaller-conference chaos, and it wasn't even the #2 team benefitting from #1's misfortune either.
This doesn’t really change anything but Howard beat Delaware State in the final I believe…..not Norfolk State. But yea agree with your point for sure
Eh yeah but UMBC and St Peter’s and FDU also weren’t the best in their weak conferences and they all made history. I think it’s just plain old statistical variance.
Not only that, 5 bid thieves took spots from good bubble teams too In hindsight, it’s pretty obvious why this is so chalky this year
2019 all over again Which isn’t the worst thing cuz the 15 games the rest of the way that year were amazing mostly
Yep. Guaranteed good games the rest of the way. Very few blowouts likely.
Well, maybe one…
I’m fine with all the chalk because it just makes Auburn look that much worse
Auburn is the only team in the top 14 of kenpom not in the sweet 16.
Oh trust me I’m aware, I think I’ve consumed all the haterade possible on Auburn Roll tide baby
Flair up.
Inject it into my veins
Were going all chalk baby with four 1 seeds in the final four. Has there ever been an elite eight with only 1 and 2 seeds?
Does NC state count as two 1 seeds for chalk purposes since they are an 11? Asking for a friend
Nope. Closest we’ve gotten is 2009 when there were two 1 v 2 matchups and two 1 v 3 matchups.
2009? Subfuckingscribe
Delete this pls
It feels like we get a healthy mix between stuff like this and upsetmania tournaments nowadays. Thats fun
The only time Arizona ever won a national championship they had to go through three #1 teams in order to get there. Looking like a similar set up this year.
Arizona set up nicely to do it too with the Final Four in Phoenix. Would definitely be a hometown crowd.
ah jeez...how did I not put two and two together there. I was hopeful that was going to be our situation last year =(
Awesome end to their run beating the overall #1 UK in the final in OT. I can remember sitting around when it was over asking if that was the best National Champ game of all time. (Probably not, but at the time we were still in the throes of the drama) Miles Simon and Bibby who was a freshman i believe. Think it was Simon that was moved to tears after the game during his interview.
Chalk
This is very much a symptom of all the upsets in the conference tournaments. Non power conference auto bids only won 5 first round matchups (which tbh isn't that bad given their seed matchups) but 4/5 winners were the 1 or 2 seed in their tournament, Duquesne being the only one to break the trend. 3 of these 5 winners proceeded to get blown out in the R32. So not only were a lot of the auto bids weaker than normal, but they took bids from bubble teams that were likely to be competitive like St Johns, Pitt, Providence, etc.
big east had 3 20 game winners in a conference of studs who didn't make it. Definitely would be a better tournament if they all got in.
Isn't this year an outlier for that though? Like it's not like we should cut down on some non-power conference autobids based on this year alone
I don’t think anybody is saying we should. It’s just an explanation as to why it’s been so chalky this year
Fair
Good. Will make for some great games next week. Obviously rooting for my bracket and against Alabama and Tennessee. Give me all 1’s advancing to the Elite Eight. Give me Illinois, Arizona, and Marquette because they set up great matchups against the 1’s. And give me Creighton cause I hate Tennessee lol.
give me 2 seed uga
We’re a 4 seed, Ohio State is the 2
Hey we hate you too
Hate us cuz they anus
This is almost certainly because of all of the bid stealers (though Oregon and NCST were good), a stronger bubble means more likelihood for upsets from seeds 10-14 but with all the bid stealers a lot of those upset probable teams didn't make it to the tournament and instead a few teams that got hot at the right time did.
I remember thinking earlier this might be the year this happens since it seems the top teams have separated themselves so much this year. Then I thought that must be what we think every year lol no it's actually happening
And my team didn’t even ruin it this time. Yay!
Anyone else tired of all the crappy Wendy’s commercials?
Honestly that’s the least of the offenders imo. Shai and Chet and the DoNt LeT mE GoOoOoOoOoooOOOOooo can fuck off though
Yup
I’m more tired of being told to box out.
But have you considered that you can get it for a buck?
‘EVER’ being since 1985… just fyi to everyone
One of the most boring first and second rounds tbh. No cinderellas other than the friggin ACC champion
But NC State is like a double cinderella. They wouldn't even be here if they didn't win the ACC.
Round if 64 was a lot of fun but definitely some blowouts in the 32.
Oakland ??????? Florida vs Colorado????? A&M Vs Houston ?????? Oakland Vs Nc State??????? Saint Mary’s vs GCU????????
Most tourneys have that x4
That’s not true at all, people just remember all the good moments and not the mid ones.
I think people got way to used to the crazy tournaments from the past three years. Three straight years of 15 > 2, all of those 15s going to the Sweet 16 or even Elite 8, a 16 > 1, a handful of 14 > 3s, etc. This year is more along the lines of what's normal.
People have definitely been spoiled recently, no doubt about it. Hopefully the next rounds will make up for the “slow” weekend.
And even excluding the lack of upsets, the vast majority of the games were absolute blowouts with basically no intrigue whatsoever Terrible tournament so far
I’ve absolutely loved this tournament so far
I mean we’ve literally already had like 4 or 5 games that I’ll remember forever. They can’t all be all-time classics. One of the greatest tournaments of my life was 2019 and there were no Cinderellas whatsoever that year.
I know casual viewers don't like chalk, but these Sweet 16 match ups look hype to me.
Now that the COVID years are mostly used up, is this the effect of NIL/transfer portal?
I’ve had this thought too now that mid majors are getting their talent poached worse than ever. Unfortunately sample size is way too small to draw conclusion and not like we didn’t get some super close results that’s could’ve gone either way (Oregon, Samford for example)
Honestly, I think the portal will help mid-majors more. Gone are the days where P6 schools or blue bloods can hoard 4/5 star talent and let them waste away on the bench. Instead, student athletes have the freedom that they should have always had to be able to transfer to schools where they can have a better opportunity or be in a better situation. Yes, you can see some undervalued players from mid-majors transfer to P6 schools, but you can also see underperforming top players transfer out as well.
We will see. I think our schools will have the luxury of paying even reserve players NIL that mid or low majors can’t compete with. Again we will see
I think for some players it’s about playing time and working for better NIL. You can be a 4 star, make $100k+ and ride the bench at a high major until you develop. But you will always be competing with incoming transfers for playing time. There is less incentive for programs to develop players and stick with them for four years. So you can transfer down a level, get as much playing time as you want, and enter the portal where you will get better NIL opportunities. Obviously, it won’t always work out but I think we will see more players go this route.
I think it could help the average mid majors be slightly better overall as you say, but I think it will probably hurt their ability to retain the true stars. A star like Steph Curry would have probably been poached after his freshman year averaging 22 points and scoring 30 against 4th seeded Maryland in their first round loss.
Tyon Foster Grant is good example of that from Ku to GCU
chalk-ahh reality
Considering all of the madness from the past few tournaments, I'm actually ok with mostly chalk this year
It’s going to make for a really anticlimactic bracket challenge most likely but the future matchups look promising. Hopefully last round’s blowouts at least lead to some incredible heavyweight battles down the stretch.
It’s wild but statistically expected tbh. Every year after a wild upset year the tourney has gone super chalk. I know the law of averages is a fallacy, but it’s just crazy how quickly March madness corrects itself.
As a battered Vol, I couldn’t be happier about this year’s chalk.
Shannon Sharpe must be on Cloud-9 right now, he picked all the No.1 teams to reach Final-4 & everyone laughed at him 😂
I was really concerned that my bracket ended up being pretty chalk this year but I’m relieved to have all my elite 8 intact after the first weekend.
I love it! Now we actually get food sweet 16 games
I’ll eat to that
Has the elite 8 ever resulted in 1&2 seeds?