Syracuse Bracket

[IlliniKrush]

Here we go:

 

UNC

Oakland/Alabama A&M winner

 

Minnesota

Iowa St

 

Villanova

New Mexico

 

Florida

Ohio

 

Wisconsin

Northern Iowa

 

Kansas

Bucknell

 

Charlotte

NC St

 

UConn

Central Florida

[backman]

Florida vs Villinova great second round matchup!

[WilliamTell]

Florida vs Villinova great second round matchup!

 

You're tellin me, I can't wait for that one. I hope there are no upsets before those 2 square off. (Hint: the traditional 12-5 upset.)

[DetroitWhat]

Tough bracket.

 

UNC

UConn

Kansas

Florida

 

Wow.

[Rowand44]

You're tellin me, I can't wait for that one. I hope there are no upsets before those 2 square off. (Hint: the traditional 12-5 upset.)

I have 'nova in the final four but that New Mexico game scares the s*** out of me.

[shagar69]

I have 'nova in the final four but that New Mexico game scares the s*** out of me.

wow, u got some guts man. IMO Nova is a good bet to lose to NM. and if not that there is no way in HELL that Nova can beat the Heels, should they somehow get past fla. which in itself is hard.

[Rowand44]

wow, u got some guts man. IMO Nova is a good bet to lose to NM.  and if not that there is no way in HELL that Nova can beat the Heels, should they somehow get past fla. which in itself is hard.

You know what, I'm in a 200 plus person pool you have to have some guts to win it and I've liked nova all year and I think they can beat anyone. Anyways, if they can get by the first weekend I think they're good to go, New Mexico and Florida scare me more then UNC.

[soxman35]

I have 'nova in the final four but that New Mexico game scares the s*** out of me.

same

[ZoomSlowik]

I actually have UNM in the Sweet 16. I like their diversity of scoring, and Grainger is pretty solid. Villanova can definitely be beat if they're not hitting their 3's, and if Walsh or Roberson are off Florida is very suspect. I got UNC steamrolling everyone except UConn in the final, where I think they will win a fairly close one.

[Palehosefan]

Here is a nice article on Rashad McCants.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story...=jackson/050314

 

By the way, does anyone NOT have NC State beating Charlotte? Thats almost a no brainer to me, I'm just wondering if others see it different.

[greasywheels121]

Here is a nice article on Rashad McCants.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story...=jackson/050314

 

By the way, does anyone NOT have NC State beating Charlotte? Thats almost a no brainer to me, I'm just wondering if others see it different.

 

Not only because of what I had to see them do here, but I picked Charlotte.

[ZoomSlowik]

I got Charlotte over NC State. I don't really see why NC State has so much support, they've underacheived all year. Their only major accomplishments were beating another underacheiving team twice in Georgia Tech, beating another major underacheiver in Maryland, and beating Wake without Chris Paul. I know Charlotte hasn't had any major victories either, but they had considerably fewer opportunities. I'm pretty confident Basden will seriously slow down Hodge, and the rest of NC State's team is a collection of mediocrity.

[Rowand44]

I got Charlotte over NC State. I don't really see why NC State has so much support, they've underacheived all year. Their only major accomplishments were beating another underacheiving team twice in Georgia Tech, beating another major underacheiver in Maryland, and beating Wake without Chris Paul. I know Charlotte hasn't had any major victories either, but they had considerably fewer opportunities. I'm pretty confident Basden will seriously slow down Hodge, and the rest of NC State's team is a collection of mediocrity.

Nc State plays defense, Charlotte on the other hand doesn't.

[ZoomSlowik]

Nc State plays defense, Charlotte on the other hand doesn't.

 

I don't think that's an accurate statement. Charlotte does allow several points per game more than NC State, but a good chunk of that can be attributed to their offensive style. NC State runs the Princeton offense, which is designed to work the clock and get quality shot. That shaves off several possessions for the other team. A better indicator would be the oppenent's field goal percentage, which is .432 to .438. That's not that much of a difference. Considering that Charlotte scores about 5 points more per game, that should at least equalize whatever gap there is on defense.

[Rowand44]

I don't think that's an accurate statement. Charlotte does allow several points per game more than NC State, but a good chunk of that can be attributed to their offensive style. NC State runs the Princeton offense, which is designed to work the clock and get quality shot. That shaves off several possessions for the other team. A better indicator would be the oppenent's field goal percentage, which is .432 to .438. That's not that much of a difference. Considering that Charlotte scores about 5 points more per game, that should at least equalize whatever gap there is on defense.

Good stats zoom. To tell you the truth my comment game more from watching them play then stats so that's just my opinion on both teams.

 

EDIT: Also, you say Charlotte averages 5 more points per game but like you said that's to be expected because they won't take as many shots as charlotte because of their style of play. So you look at fg percentage there and Charlotte shot 43.7 percent from the field and nc state shot 46 percent from the field.

Edited March 15, 2005 by Rowand44

[Palehosefan]

Evtimov I believe has been shooting very well lately also. I just haven't really been impressed at all with Charlotte, aren't Cincinatti and Indiana the only good teams that Charlotte beat this year? I could be wrong because I haven't checked, but overall I'm not impressed. State will get demolished by UConn anyways in the 2nd round.

[Rowand44]

Evtimov I believe has been shooting very well lately also. I just haven't really been impressed at all with Charlotte, aren't Cincinatti and Indiana the only good teams that Charlotte beat this year? I could be wrong because I haven't checked, but overall I'm not impressed. State will get demolished by UConn anyways in the 2nd round.

Agreed.

[ZoomSlowik]

I guess you can make that argument about their offense. It seems to me at least that Plavich has a massive drag on their FG%. Withers (leading scorer) shoots about 47%, Basden (#2) is a little under 50%. Plavich only shoots about 37.5% as their #3 scorer, and the bulk of his shots are from the arc. If he is hitting though, that percentage jumps a ton. They don't have quality wins, but they also didn't get multiple shots at Duke/Wake/UNC. They basically had one shot at home versus Bama that they lost by a point, a home/away split against Cinci, and a game at Louisville that they lost (I guess you could the win at Marquette when they still had Deiner, but that still isn't stellar). They did win well over 20 games, which is fairly impressive. I'm just not at all impressed with NC State, they're basically Northwestern with Julius Hodge and a harder schedule. In the end I guess it doesn't matter since I doubt that either team can beat UConn.

[Rowand44]

I guess you can make that argument about their offense. It seems to me at least that Plavich has a massive drag on their FG%. Withers (leading scorer) shoots about 47%, Basden (#2) is a little under 50%. Plavich only shoots about 37.5% as their #3 scorer, and the bulk of his shots are from the arc. If he is hitting though, that percentage jumps a ton. They don't have quality wins, but they also didn't get multiple shots at Duke/Wake/UNC. They basically had one shot at home versus Bama that they lost by a point, a home/away split against Cinci, and a game at Louisville that they lost (I guess you could the win at Marquette when they still had Deiner, but that still isn't stellar). They did win well over 20 games, which is fairly impressive. I'm just not at all impressed with NC State, they're basically Northwestern with Julius Hodge and a harder schedule. In the end I guess it doesn't matter since I doubt that either team can beat UConn.

Fair enough. We each have our own opinions on it and we'll find out thursday.

[Chisoxfn]

Here is a nice article on Rashad McCants.

http://sports.espn.go.com/espn/page2/story...=jackson/050314

 

By the way, does anyone NOT have NC State beating Charlotte? Thats almost a no brainer to me, I'm just wondering if others see it different.

I picked NC STate, but you just cursed that pick for me Chris

 

I like NC State as a team that could make some noise.

[Palehosefan]

lol yeah I probably did curse it. I should have just kept my mouth shut. Either Julius Hodge is knocked out of the tourney, or I'm right. Either way I win

[Palehosefan]

As expected, Redick was named ACC POY today. The "greatest shooter of all time" doubled up Sean May's 1st place votes 68-34. Lets take a look at the numbers.

 

Redick, 1st in scoring, 1st in minutes by over 3 a game to 2nd highest player, 1st in FT%, 5th in 3PT%.

 

May, 6th in scoring, 2nd in rebounding, 11th in blocked shots, 11th in FT%, 4th in FG%, and played 11 minutes a game less than Redick.

 

JJ adds shooting, average defense, and what else on the 3rd place team?

May adds a double double, blocked shots, more steals a game than Redick, and the highest EPI in ACC history on the 1st place team. Here is what EPI is.

 

"This week's ACC sports Journal has its annual Efficient Production Index rating for ACC players/ACC games. Players get 1 point for every steal, blocked shot and rebound and 2 points for every point scored. Each assist counts 1.7 EPI points. Points are subtracted for each turnover and missed shot. Fouls are multiplied b .7 and subtracted and missed fts are multiplied by 1.5 and subtracted. The total is then divided by minutes played.

 

Past winners:

 

Todd Fuller NCSU 1996

Tim Duncan WFU 1997

Antawn Jamison 1998

Elton Brand 1999

Darius Songalia 2000

Joe Forte 2001

Carlos Boozer 2002

Josh Howard 2003

Rashad McCants 200"

 

Here are the highest in history.

May 1.430

Jamison 1.417

Forte 1.387

Boozer 1.364

Brand 1.351

[WilliamTell]

Whatever happened to Joe Forte anyways?

[Palehosefan]

Forte is playing in the NBDL, he had an attitude problem and couldn't stick with the Supersonic's. But he has learned the error of his ways so to speak and he's working on his attitude along with his game to make it back to the league. He will always have a problem with what position he will play, he plays like a SG, but is 6'3 200 pounds at max, he does have lot of skill though, I'm hoping for the best. I will admit though that he's never been one of my favorites, right there with Maktar Ndiaye.

[WilliamTell]

Forte is playing in the NBDL, he had an attitude problem and couldn't stick with the Supersonic's. But he has learned the error of his ways so to speak and he's working on his attitude along with his game to make it back to the league. He will always have a problem with what position he will play, he plays like a SG, but is 6'3 200 pounds at max, he does have lot of skill though, I'm hoping for the best. I will admit though that he's never been one of my favorites, right there with Maktar Ndiaye.

 

 

Yeah I didn't think he was playing with the Songs anymore.