2024 NCAA Tournament Thread
- Thread starter acoustimac
- Start date
I'll start things off with a few thoughts on ISU.
1. The team is playing about as good as it has all year and yet can still play better. If they get performances on offense like we saw vs KSU and OU they will be hard to handle. Defensively, they've been pretty tough as well. I also think the UT game will be a learning experience that will help them moving forward.
2. No one will want to draw ISU. If the shooters are hitting from outside, assists are being made at a high percentage, and we are rebounding (and this assumes Crooks continues her dominance) it will take someone special to beat ISU.
1. The team is playing about as good as it has all year and yet can still play better. If they get performances on offense like we saw vs KSU and OU they will be hard to handle. Defensively, they've been pretty tough as well. I also think the UT game will be a learning experience that will help them moving forward.
2. No one will want to draw ISU. If the shooters are hitting from outside, assists are being made at a high percentage, and we are rebounding (and this assumes Crooks continues her dominance) it will take someone special to beat ISU.
I won't get all upset to play USC early if the brackets come to that. I don't think we'd get blown out if we do and the eyes we'd get if they come to see Juju and then see Audi, Addy, and Ryan...
Eventually, we will have to beat a really good team to advance, but I don't want to play a #1 or #2 until we get on a neutral court.
At least on the men's side:
* Played once in the regular season, can meet in the round of 32
* Played twice, Sweet 16
* Played thrice, Elite Eight
Of the four women's bracketologists I follow, two have ISU on the 7 line, and two have us on the 8 line. My own semi-informed analysis puts us borderline 6/7 -- more nice wins than most of the similarly slotted teams, but also more questionable losses.
So as an #8 seed in the women's tournament, perhaps we could face (Eastern) Iowa in Iowa City? I would love that!
My ignorant opinion is 7 seed because doesn't seem right for a team with lots of very recent ranked wins to be on 8/9 line.
Would not shock me. The women's tournament is much more worried about travel and regionalization in the first two rounds.
In my opinion, those wins were what moved us to the 8/9 (and probably the #8) from being higher and on the bubble not that long ago. An #8 seems pretty fair when you look at overall records and season long accomplishments. Polling and NET are pretty close for us and have us in the #8 slot, unlike last year with our NET that was sort of an outlier and way too high. Last years team probably should have been a 7/8 and not the #5 they got. We didn't even get a vote in the final poll.
Not buying they are much concerned about travel except for mid-majors a little bit. #8 seed USC was sent cross-country to play at Virginia Tech last year. No need for attendance or TV "draw" with Iowa and the Clark Factor, they'll sell out and have a lot of TV eyes. The teams playing in IC last year were Southeastern Louisiana, Florida State and Georgia.
