***Official 2025 NCAA Tournament Thread***
- Thread starter ClonesTwenty1
- Start date
I can agree to that on the 50-46 point games. I guess it doesn't bother me if I don't care about either team and can find the fun in it, but I get too frustrated easily when a random team goes 50% from the 3 against the team I want to win.
And by frustrated I mean screaming profanity laced tantrums at the TV.
Houston is still around an a big threat to win it all but it’s really looking like a SEC only (plus Duke) final four is a real possibility.
Final Four will be Duke, Michigan State, and two SEC teams. SEC will have five in the Elite 8.
You should be bothered then by the defense.I can agree to that on the 50-46 point games. I guess it doesn't bother me if I don't care about either team and can find the fun in it, but I get too frustrated easily when a random team goes 50% from the 3 against the team I want to win.
And by frustrated I mean screaming profanity laced tantrums at the TV.
I guarantee we’ll see a post in here about how “3pt % defense is all statistically random - sometimes teams just get hot or cold!”
What the stats/analytics cannot account for is the human element of confidence. And the 1 thing a defense can impact (to a meaningful even if unquantifiable degree) is their opponent’s confidence. The “close out” is the perfect example. Every defense stresses hard close outs. Some teams fly at a shooter. Some teams keep their feet down and hand up at the shooter’s hand. What matters most though is the shooter’s eyes. If a shooter has a sight line and the close out is literally just a millisecond or 1 inch too “slow”, that shooter feels great about the shot. And if he sees 1 or 2 go in - woof, watch out.
Our B12 tourney game against BYU - we gave BYU GREAT looks early in that game. You could argue they got lucky hitting 18 3’s. No, they didn’t. They have a team of great shooters, and we allowed them to get really confident (and comfortable) shooting.
The very next night, they didn’t shoot well against Houston. Houston’s rotations were lightning fast. Their close outs were really solid. And BYU quickly noticed it just wasn’t quite as easy for their shooters to see the hoop in rhythm. So they had to release the ball sooner. They had to shoot from a few inches further back. They clanked a few. Within 5 minutes into that game, none of their shooters had confidence.
Tonight in BYU’s game against Bama, in that first half, they let Bama get comfortable, and kept doing it! They kept going under screens. They kept being lazy with rotations and close outs. They gifted Bama with superhuman confidence. Bama doesn’t get that good of looks in shoot around.
Bama is going to run into a Team here soon that simply won’t allow them to have a huge amount of comfortable looks. Can they still make a bunch? Sure, but they’ll never get to do what they did tonight again.
