ZoomSlowik

QUOTE(MarlinFan84 @ Mar 12, 2006 -> 09:00 PM) I find it kind of...depressing that, in all but Bradley's 1st round game, the MVC drew all big east. I would love to see all 3 win(and in the bracket i filled out, they do), but ESPN would go flippin nuts if the Valley...the conference that for the most part they have called overrated and undeserving of so many bids...beat the Big East, who they thought all along should get more teams in at the expense of the Valley. Personally, I think SIU has a decent chance to take down West Virginia. If they can limit the wide open 3's, they should have a decent chance. Witchita State can also hang with Seton Hall, that's a winnable game. Northern Iowa also has a chance against Georgetown, although they'll have to play pretty well to beat them. I don't give Bradley too much of a chance though.

I like the teams in your rankings but I think you should tweak a few things in terms of order. I think LSU is the #3 frontcourt. Davis is one of the most dominant offensive post players in the country I'd say it's between him and Powe), and Thomas is a big time athlete when he's healthy. Tasmin Mitchell is another really solid player if you're counting the SF's. I like those guys a lot more than I like Florida and Kansas' guys, although the latter two have more depth. As for the backcourts, you gotta have Villanova #1. Foye, Ray, and Lowry can do it all, and Nardi is also pretty solid. UCLA's guys are solid, but they are still a little young and Collison doesn't thrill me as the 3rd guard. Honestly, I'd also put Duke on there ahead of Iowa. Horner and Haluska are both solid but not stellar. Redick is dominant, Dockery is a guard that gives you solid contributions in a lot of areas, and Paulus is a pretty good playmaker.

QUOTE(thedoctor @ Mar 12, 2006 -> 08:22 PM) i like georgetown a lot. and you are right, they have a pretty deep front line which will help against dials. at this point though i am not even totally sure g'town beats northern iowa. Definitely a solid point on the first game, I'm just jumping ahead of myself. Honestly, at this point I'm seeing the teams I like and occasionally glossing over another pretty solid team in my haste (I totally forgot that Kansas plays Pitt in the second, and I'm already worrying about them playing Memphis ). I can't wait to see how this bracket plays out. It should be very interesting, as there seem to be a lot of strong teams. Honestly, I kind of wish the committee put a team or two in a different bracket to balance things out more. But with the Minneapolis region being so loaded and my personal belief that there are a lot of suspect teams in the Oakland region, it should definitely be an entertaining tournament.

QUOTE(thedoctor @ Mar 12, 2006 -> 08:11 PM) i like ohio state's chances in this bracket. not a team they can't beat. I think playing Georgetown in the second round could be an interesting game. The Hoyas have enough size to make life difficult for OSU in the paint on both ends, which is a major problem since OSU hasn't been hitting their 3's at a very high rate of late.

This is a pretty messed up bracket. There are a lot of fairly tough teams. Duke could be in some trouble. Even their second round game will be tough, at least assuming that Mensah Bansu is back (maybe the reason for the drop?). They probably have to go through 2 pretty tough teams (GW, LSU) to get to the Elite 8. GW/Duke could be a really exciting game because both can score a lot, and despite the hype Duke has a habit of allowing an awful lot of points as of late.

This bracket is really tough. I can't really see Villanova surviving this bracket. A lot of my sleeper Final Four teams ended up in this bracket. It's going to be a real pain to pick them.

This is a really weak bracket. UConn should cruise to the Final Four. I just don't see anyone beating them. Illinois got screwed a bit getting a 4, but they only really bad part about it is playing UConn. If by some miracle they get by them, the teams on the other side of the bracket aren't very good.

This region is definitely messed up. I don't really like most of the teams in this bracket, but I gotta have someone advance. Memphis got a really good draw, because they can definitely beat everyone in this bracket. I thought they'd get a really tough 4-5 seed, but Kansas is a lot like them. They're both really young and really athletic. I think that's about the best they could have hoped for. UCLA did too. They can easily get to the Elite 8 with that draw, contrary to what I said recently. I don't think they'll beat the Memphis/Kansas winner, but I think they can take everyone up to that point. I personally think Marquette will be a tougher game for them than Gonzaga or Indiana.

No way Michigan should have gotten in. They won a few games at home, but weren't consistent enough. Florida State was a good omission too. Outside of the win against Duke, they did nothing. I don't have a problem with Cinci either because they haven't been very good since Kirkland got hurt. This is just a bad year for a lot of the power conferences, and frankly I think this year a lot of the mid-majors can hang with them.

QUOTE(Rowand44 @ Mar 12, 2006 -> 02:50 PM) Did I say the best? I obviously didn't see much of either of those guys but he's easily one of the best ever. He's not even close to guys like that though. Maravich averaged 40 a game without the 3-pointer. Plus you'd think that someone that is supposedly the greatest ever would shoot a bit better than 40% from the arc.

QUOTE(Rowand44 @ Mar 12, 2006 -> 02:49 PM) JJ is one of the best pure shooters the college game has ever seen. I'm sorry, he's got nothing on Jerry West and Pete Maravich. He also shoots a pretty low percentage for someone that is supposedly one of the all-time greats.

Interesting little shoving match in the Duke-BC game. Sure is taking them a while to sort it out.

QUOTE(MarlinFan84 @ Mar 12, 2006 -> 01:34 PM) Anyone else get the impression that at any time during a Duke broadcast that Dick Vitale is getting sexually arounsed just watching the Blue Devils? And speficially JJ Redick? And there is a ref conspiricy...Duke gets any and all calls. Mike Patrick might actually be worse. Every time Redick hits an even moderately difficult shot it sounds like he needs to change his pants.

QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ Mar 12, 2006 -> 02:44 AM) Statistically speaking, UCLA is one of the best defenses in the country. There adjusted defensive efficiency is 8th in the country. Shockingly Iowa is 2nd in the country . Kansas is #1. Thats from some stat website I was looking at. So I'm going to totally disagree with where you knock UCLA's defense. They will be in the elite 8. I didn't say their D was bad, I said I didn't think it was as solid as Illinois', regardless of the stats. I think the two teams are very similar, and that neither is going that far. Both teams play good D and have passable but not stellar offenses. The major difference I see is that Illinois is doing it in the Big Ten, whereas UCLA is doing it in a virtual mid-major conference. Also, while both teams rely heavily on two players offensively, Illinois can get some help from McBride, Pruitt, and Randle, while Mbah a Moute, Bozeman, and the rest of their roster isn't really adept at creating their own shots.

QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ Mar 11, 2006 -> 06:34 PM) You know whose really playing great right now..UCLA. I realize they are beating up on the down pac 10 conference but they are playing strong defensively and the team has grown a lot and responded well to all the injuries. Plus Ben Howland is a very good head coach. The only thing is they'll need to get Bozeman back healthy. I'm putting them down as an elite 8 team. I am not a fan of UCLA at all. Not only are they in a s***ty conference, they lost to Washington twice, and the best team they beat in non-conference play is probably a toss-up between Nevada and Michigan. They rely very heavily on Afflalo and Farmar, and if one of them has a bad game they are probably done. Mbah A Moute is passable but far from stellar, and Bozeman is really only useful as a defender. Honestly, their offensive options are weaker than Illinois', and their defense isn't as solid. They'll get out of the first round, but I'd guess they'll go down to the 6 seed they'll probably play in the second round. They should be a beast next year though, with another year of experience and Shipp coming back from injury.

QUOTE(aboz56 @ Mar 11, 2006 -> 06:08 PM) Enjoy Greg Oden next year, that's about all I have to say. Ohio St fans are humorous. You guys pretend to care about basketball when you're good, but really, you're just a football school. After Oden and Conley leave, back to mediocrity. Not really. First off, there are two other top 30 players in that recruiting class. Secondly, they already have verbals from a 4 star SG for 07 and 2 of the top 15 in 08 (at least according to scout.com) and are in the running for numerous other top players.

QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ Mar 11, 2006 -> 04:24 PM) Thats not too bad of a class correct? Ie they aren't getting any stars, but quite a few solid palyers. Plus this is a team that could use some Juco help. It looks fairly good, although not stellar. It doesn't look like the freshmen will contribute, but the JuCo's might. I suddenly can't find my usual JuCo resource, but the name Cyrus Tate sounds familiar to me, which probably means he was a solid recruit at some point and that he could be an immediate contributor. Tate used to be a fairly solid player at Homewood Flosmoor. Apparently Johnson was a pre-season JuCo All-American.

QUOTE(Chisoxfn @ Mar 11, 2006 -> 03:56 PM) Hey, you probably know more than I do about this, but how has Alford been doing with recruiting this year? Do we have any decent ones coming in. Iowa has 3 players signed and another committed for next year. They have Justin Johnson, a 6'6" JuCo SG, Cyrus Tate, a 6'8" JuCo PF, Jamie Vanderbeken, a 6'10" freshmen, and Malik Perry, a 6'5" SG (freshmen). All of them are 3 stars on Rivals, and neither of the freshmen are ranked in their top 150.

Ager moved ahead of Vedran for good in the scoring race on his last 3-pointer.

QUOTE(Jordan4life_2006 @ Mar 11, 2006 -> 01:43 AM) I wouldn't go that far. But he's definitely not the player I thought he was gonna become. How many 6'0" or under players do you see in the NBA that aren't really a PG? The only one I can really think of is AI, or at least the only one that is doing anything. Dee Brown is almost certainly going to at least get a shot at the NBA, and I'm not sure he really should. I know I wouldn't touch him if I were a GM. He's short, isn't a good shooter, doesn't penetrate, and isn't a good distributor. Unless he's on a team that runs constantly like Phoenix, I don't really see much value for him on the next level.

QUOTE(MarlinFan84 @ Mar 11, 2006 -> 12:05 AM) I wouldn't say he's overrated, I'd say he's rated just right. Of course he is going to flourish with the supporting cast he had last year, and of course with the overturn in starters there are going to be struggles. But I want you to ask yourself something...would the Illini be as good a team as they are if D.B. wasn't running the offense? If you simply remove Brown from the equation, then yes, they suck. But if you replace him with another highly hyped underacheiver like Daniel Gibson or Jordan Farmar, they're about the same, or maybe even a little bit better. If you replaced him with a less hyped player that produces a little more consistently like Daniel Horton or Marcus Williams, you're also probably in the same position.

QUOTE(whitesoxfan99 @ Mar 10, 2006 -> 11:32 PM) Anyone hear anything about Allan Ray yet? Sounded like no new details, they just said that it's an eye injury. It's either a non-issue or a really serious problem, with the former being a lot more likely. If he is out however, Nova is totally screwed.

There are a few other ridiculous food items out there. In one of the minor league parks, you can get a burger with a bratwurst patty on it. There's also the deep-fried twinkie. Another classic from campus after a night of heavy drinking was a burger wrapped around a hot dog with cheese on it. Amazingly no one had a heart attack or needed a stomach pump.

QUOTE(Soxbadger @ Mar 10, 2006 -> 04:54 PM) Yeah it appears Gullickson had a really nice game though, and Ill take the loss if it means come tournament time Gullickson is a viable player. Ray Nixon though shot terribly, from the ESPN updates I think the only shot he made was a dunk, lol. Anyways with a bunch of other good teams losing in their tournaments, the loss doesnt hurt that bad. Guessing Wisconsin can be anywhere from a 5 to 8 seed. More likely in the 7-10 range. Their resume doesn't matchup to well with most of the seeds in the 4-6 range, and they've lost 5 of their last 11. They have a few decent wins, but they haven't done a whole lot since early January.

Forget anything I ever said about NC State making a run. They're about to lose their 4th in a row and their 2nd straight to Wake Forest. They're down 50-28.