Our NCAA location will most likely be Milwaukee or Denver regardless of seed. Wichita site will most likely be Houston and Texas AM. If you want Milwaukee, cheer against Purdue and Wisconsin. Most likely, we will just need to be ahead of one of them in the seed line to get MKE.
Only the No. 1 overall seed is allowed to select its region & first-weekend site.
The problem with Cleveland is it is a lot closer trip to a lot of other teams (Michigan, Michigan State, Purdue) plus the second choice for bunch of other SEC teams that I don't think it would ever be a realistic option. Either we have a high speed and get a better spot, or we have a worse seed and other teams got preference for Cleveland.
there is also a chance of dropping to the 5 if BYU continues to surge like they are.
If a not far from looking a whole lot worse. Marquette, Baylor and Arizona State are super close to being quad 2 wins. If we win the last 4, we will be fine but if we lose 2 or 3, we are probably dropping like a rock (5 seed maybe).
That BYU game is scaring me, especially if we aren't full strength.
BYU is very good, and they're not the best match-up for us, at least they weren't last year. Recall that last year's team, which was even better defensively metric-wise than this year's, lost at BYU by a lot, and barely survived BYU at Hilton. BYU looked the better team in our games with them and the net point differential reflected that. This year's BYU team is similar in that they space the court, have 4 shooters out there at all times (even though they don't have Khalifa running the point-forward from the top of the key), and move the ball well. We trap - a lot - teams that can beat our trap and reverse the ball quick find open shooters on the weak side of the court.
They may not be crashing but they are definitely sliding hard and fast. Lost four in a row, yes to better competition but if they were truly a 2 or even 3 seed they would have won a couple of them. And only one of the four losses were actually close.
One thing about byu, assuming Gilbert and jones are back, we should be able to put Jefferson at the 5 and switch everything. At least at times. I don’t think that they have a super strong inside game. Switching should help with their 3 point shooting.
If MSU jumps ISU they will most likely land in Cleveland instead of Milwaukee. Still to early to call imo. Wisky will be favored in 3 of last 4. Purdue needs to win at home on Friday against UCLA. They still have to go to Illinois on the final day of reg season as well.
I see your point about Jefferson, and it's a good one in general. Nice to have Jefferson's defensive versatility among the Bigs. However, my bigger point was a concern about us continuing our hard trap defense. We love to trap the corner (coffin corner) and for good reason, right, and we also hard trap different teams at different places on the court depending on their personnel. It's worked well and in general, I've been so impressed with TJ and staff. For example, we were trapping the outer thirds of the court it seemed like a fair amount against Houston. We disrupted their offense a bit and they kind of settled into just iso ball and let Cryer (mostly) or Uzan just go one-on-one to try and get a shot down the stretch. That's a testament to our defense. With BYU, their players are good at ball movement and good shooters who like to space it, probably better than UH in my opinion, so I don't know if that strategy will work against them.
BYU looks like basically the same team as last year. Think Iowa, but better. They just let it fly and if they're hot, they can beat anyone. Have to keep them playing in the half court and grind them down.
