***Official 2024 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament Thread***

[Cyhig]

Fun bunch of games to kick off the tourney Tomorrow.

View attachment 125947

Easy to pull for Long Beach St. Don Monson gets fired from his job right before the conference tournament, but he is allowed to still be the coach through the end of the season. The team then wins the conference tournament.
It's a fun story, and these are the types of stories that become legendary this time of year (sister jean, for example)

 

[jcyclonee]

For the record. Sanford has a player (Nathan Johnson) from Waukee and is a huge Cyclone fan. Hope he burns the Jayhawks

The name is so close

 

[brother bob]

Virginia Basketball is Iowa Football

 

[Halincandenza]

There is an interesting article in the athletic about Jokic and the point center and college basketball and Hoiberg is a big part of it talking about how Royce White was the first version of this in the NCAA.

The Joker Effect: Playmaking centers have revolutionized college basketball offenses

The NCAA Tournament will be full of teams that run offense through their big men — and are exceptionally efficient because of it.

theathletic.com

 

[Drew0311]

The name is so close

Loved that movie

 

[jcyclonee]

Nice to see Virginia's undeserved inclusion blow up in the committee's face. A team that had one quality win since November.

Gotta stick up for my local team St. John's. Won 6 in a row including beating Creighton and then gave UConn one of their toughest games all season. There's no way you can tell me that Virginia deserved to be in over St. John's, it's just more nonsense about rewarding OOC wins many months ago over how a team is playing currently.

Virginia should have been left out. Indiana State should have been in.
Northwestern should have been left out. St. John's should have been in.

I'd like to say these were just bubble-related teams but I don't think St. John's and Indiana State belonged on the bubble.

 

[EnkAMania]

I've collected all the tidbits of what the national championship team looks like since 2002 and made a wacky rating system.

Criteria	Score - All Time
KenPom Top 25	21
4 seed or better	20
KenPom Top 25 AdjOff	20
Week 6 AP Top 12	20
KenPom Top 40 AdjDef	20
Team Rankings Top 6 (Team rankings started in 2007, so I pro-rated the number)	18.375
Elite 8 Coach	19
Lowest KenPom rank loss <100	18
Reg Season or Conf Champ	18
6 or fewer losses	17
3 Pt % >35 (This was adjusted after the line moved back)	15

Iowa State just missed the Team Rankings Top 6 and 3 Pt %. So Purdue and UConn are tied for first. The worst team in the tournament is Texas A&M.

 

[cyclones500]

Speaking of injuries. It still isnt confirmed that Kolek will play their first game.

Random update I saw said they're "expecting" him to play, but that was 2 days ago -- I haven't checked further.

 

[CloniesForLife]

I'm not sure - it's at altitude in SLC and Samford runs 12 guys and pushes the pace a lot. If they are able to get KU running, they can get Dickinson and others tired, and then if they make 3s they could make it competitive.

Didn't realize it was in SLC

 

[WalkingCY]

oh that's a good stat regarding Alabama. I had them going far I may need to rethink

C of C is going to get them

 

[Klubber]

The amount of 'experts' that have Illinois going far in their brackets is mindboggling to me. They aren't bad but they aren't great. I have this weird sense they kind of remind me of our season we lost to UAB. Team that was 'hot' late winning their league title and everyone jumped on the bandwagon and many had us going very far that year. Dunno...not saying they are gonna lose to Morehead State but I really really don't see them beating BYU.

The UAB comparison is one I've thought of as well. Illinois and that ISU team both were/are really bad defensively, but with high scoring offenses.

Only difference is the opponent. UAB just wasn't that good that year and got bounced 2nd rd. I watched Morehead last week in their conference champ game and they looked really good; not a team I'd want to see 1st rd.

 

[Klubber]

A couple players busted out frosted tips in their hair for the notorious UAB game.

Monte and Jameel, correct?

 

[jcyclonee]

The UAB comparison is one I've thought of as well. Illinois and that ISU team both were/are really bad defensively, but with high scoring offenses.

Only difference is the opponent. UAB just wasn't that good that year and got bounced 2nd rd. I watched Morehead last week in their conference champ game and they looked really good; not a team I'd want to see 1st rd.

How is Illinois at rebounding? By my recollection, what killed ISU that game (more than anything) was terrible, terrible rebounding.

 

[AuH2O]

There are some circumstances when I think assessment of an injury is valid, but it should be narrow and have only minor effect on selection/seeding.

Random fictional example - if a significant contributor misses a stretch of games, then returns to the lineup, and the performance of the team during his absense (taking into account metrics) varies significantly from the rest of the season results, maybe you take it into account. Any adjustment shouldn't involve a major swing either way.

Disregard them altogether. At what point do you draw the line? How do you take into account this for that teams’ opponents?

We are on here complaining about the stupid seeding and selections that only happen because the committee has flexibility and discretion.

There’s zero reason to have a committee pick teams at all. Just have them determine the criteria and weighting, go by resumes only, make it transparent and get the hell out of the way.

Discretion on these committees only exist to change the result when the model doesn’t churn out the answer they want.

 

[Klubber]

How is Illinois at rebounding? By my recollection, what killed ISU that game (more than anything) was terrible, terrible rebounding.

They've been good in their conference games on the glass. That said, there are a lot of bad rebounding teams in the B1G this year.

 

[Halincandenza]

Using KP history as a guide there are really only 4 teams from the East Region that can make a final four, UCONN, ISU, Auburn and San Diego State. and UCONN is the only team with the parameters to win a championship. Although, if you look at history, most returning champs don't make it out of the first weekend and rarely make it beyond the sweet 16.

 

[DSM4Cy]

Using KP history as a guide there are really only 4 teams from the East Region that can make a final four, UCONN, ISU, Auburn and San Diego State. and UCONN is the only team with the parameters to win a championship. Although, if you look at history, most returning champs don't make it out of the first weekend and rarely make it beyond the sweet 16.

Parameters are made to be broken, plus it hasn't been that long since Florida repeated. But you are right, that is an exception.

However, if you want to get pickier, nearly every champion in the KenPom era hasn't just been top 40 in both offense/defense, but they've actually been top 20 in both. Only 2014 UConn (39th best offense) and 2021 Baylor (22nd best defense) buck that trend.

In fact, the majority of champions in the last 25 years have been top 10 in both categories.

If you limit to top 20 in both, this year that would leave possible champs of:
UConn
Houston
Auburn
Arizona
And that's it.

You could also stretch and include Purdue, they are 21 in defense.

This year, the only team going into the tournament top 10 in both categories is actually Auburn.

For a team like Purdue, Tennessee, Duke, North Carolina, Creighton, Marquette to win, that would only align with 2 of the last 23 champions. It's possible, just much more improbable.

For someone like us to win it all, we would be trendsetters. No one with either an AdjO or AdjD as poor as ours has won a national title in the KenPom era. Making the Final Four, though is a different threshold, certainly would be other teams like us who have done this recently.

 

[Halincandenza]

Parameters are made to be broken, plus it hasn't been that long since Florida repeated. But you are right, that is an exception.

However, if you want to get pickier, nearly every champion in the KenPom era hasn't just been top 40 in both offense/defense, but they've actually been top 20 in both. Only 2014 UConn (39th best offense) and 2021 Baylor (22nd best defense) buck that trend.

In fact, the majority of champions in the last 25 years have been top 10 in both categories.

If you limit to top 20 in both, this year that would leave possible champs of:
UConn
Houston
Auburn
Arizona
And that's it.

You could also stretch and include Purdue, they are 21 in defense.

This year, the only team going into the tournament top 10 in both categories is actually Auburn.

For a team like Purdue, Tennessee, Duke, North Carolina, Creighton, Marquette to win, that would only align with 2 of the last 23 champions. It's possible, just much more improbable.

For someone like us to win it all, we would be trendsetters. No one with either an AdjO or AdjD as poor as ours has won a national title in the KenPom era. Making the Final Four, though is a different threshold, certainly would be other teams like us who have done this recently.

I believe some of those numbers are post tournament. I think pretourney the numbers Purdue is in there as well as Marquette. And this isn't KP but I believe you have to go back pretty far to find a national champ that didn't have a first round pick on the roster. I think I read there are really only 3 teams that can win it this year based on KP history and the first round pick deal and that is UCONN, Purdue and Marquette and Marquette's top guy is injured.

 

[CycloneErik]

Parameters are made to be broken, plus it hasn't been that long since Florida repeated. But you are right, that is an exception.

However, if you want to get pickier, nearly every champion in the KenPom era hasn't just been top 40 in both offense/defense, but they've actually been top 20 in both. Only 2014 UConn (39th best offense) and 2021 Baylor (22nd best defense) buck that trend.

In fact, the majority of champions in the last 25 years have been top 10 in both categories.

If you limit to top 20 in both, this year that would leave possible champs of:
UConn
Houston
Auburn
Arizona
And that's it.

You could also stretch and include Purdue, they are 21 in defense.

This year, the only team going into the tournament top 10 in both categories is actually Auburn.

For a team like Purdue, Tennessee, Duke, North Carolina, Creighton, Marquette to win, that would only align with 2 of the last 23 champions. It's possible, just much more improbable.

For someone like us to win it all, we would be trendsetters. No one with either an AdjO or AdjD as poor as ours has won a national title in the KenPom era. Making the Final Four, though is a different threshold, certainly would be other teams like us who have done this recently.

Sounds like we might as well be trendsetters.

 

[dahliaclone]

I saw a stat yesterday that in the KenPom era, no team with a top offense and a defense >100 has made the Sweet 16. That was in reference to Alabama (3 Off; 112 Def), but Illinois is not far from that arbitrary threshold (2 Off; 92 Def).

UIUC / ISU would be a fascinating matchup of #2 offense vs #2 defense; but our offense is a magnitude better than their defense. If we don't throw an offensive clunker, we should beat them if they even get that far.

I'm glad the tough draw prevented everyone from jumping on our "final four bandwagon".

Another noteworthy stat is that Duke hasn't beaten a top 40 NET team since January.