unclevlad Posted March 13, 2022 Report Share Posted March 13, 2022 So the brackets are being released as I type this. The local team (NMSU)...co-champs during the season, they said, and won their tournament...got a 12 seed. Quite good for a 1 bid league. And *the* seed for upset purposes...12's beat 5's with amazing frequency, 33%. By comparison, 13's beat 4's only 21% of the time, and 11's beat 6's only 37% of the time. The 12's are frequently underseeded, it looks like. In the 2nd round, the 12's are 9-3 against 13's...but also 13-29, 31% versus the 4 seed. Now there's some tweaks to this. The NCAA restructured things a few years ago. There's 4 play-in games; it's a 68 team tourney. What they did is the lowest 4 automatic bids, and the lowest 4 at-large bids, play. The at-larges...2 of em are "11 seeds" and 2 are "12 seeds." That *generally* means they're the weakest teams from the big multi-bid "power" conferences...and IMO frequently overvalued. Well, fun fun fun. Reveal's over. No, I'm NOT gonna watch everyone pick over every matchup, every seed, every undeserved entry, every snub...even if it'll dominate discussion tonight. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Hopcroft Posted March 13, 2022 Report Share Posted March 13, 2022 I am reminded of the game a decade or so ago when the University of Maryland-Baltimore County (UBMC), the 16 seed, knocked off #1 Virginia. I actually got to watch that game on YouTube years later , and it was bizarre but intriguing. The Retrievers (yes, UMBC calls their sports teams the Retrievers), played in a style that I had never seen. Players of defense were continually chirping, try to unnerve an opponent, and generally play havoc. On offense, they had a crossing game designed to rip a zone to shreds. It shouldnot have worked, The Retrievers should have faded down the stretch due ti their exhausting playing style. Instead, they cleaned Virginia;d clock and knocked out the 1 seed. The lost their next game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Logan D. Hurricanes Posted March 14, 2022 Report Share Posted March 14, 2022 Murray State is a 7 seed this year, go Racers! I believe that is the highest they have ever been. Future MVP Ja Morant is from there, so keep your eyes on 'em! Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pariah Posted March 14, 2022 Report Share Posted March 14, 2022 After flirting with the Top 10 earlier in the season following a win against a ridiculously overinflated Oregon team on the road, BYU didn't even make the first four out. They can still draw a crowd, though, so they'll probably host at least one game in the NIT. This is what happens when you lose five of your last nine conference games, including a four game losing streak. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unclevlad Posted March 14, 2022 Author Report Share Posted March 14, 2022 Hey, the name makes sense. UMBC is just off the Bay; a well respected dog breed is the Chesapeake Bay Retriever. But, yeah...that was a shocker. Just given that everyone's been pretty erratic, I'd say there's more of a chance another will lose...but we're talking maybe 50 to 1 instead of 200 to 1, per team. Wait...take that back. Baylor's still hurt. Norfolk State should only be a long shot, not sweepstakes odds. Yeah...early futures, they're only +1300. Georgia State is +3500 against Gonzaga. No lines on the other 2 because those are the play-ins. A 2 seed losing? I'm going with 50% chance. I can't watch the NIT. Not super crazy about tournaments like that, being played at team sites...not fair. Worse...for the first round in particular, too many teams checked out when they didn't make the dance, and just go through the motions. And at times, it's *really* obvious. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
death tribble Posted March 14, 2022 Report Share Posted March 14, 2022 Madness you say ? Here is my reply Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Hopcroft Posted March 14, 2022 Report Share Posted March 14, 2022 I'll do you one better with the video I'm surprised you didn't mention. It is downright weird to see children dancing around to a song about buying birth control for the first time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted March 14, 2022 Report Share Posted March 14, 2022 So are the brackets out in a place where they aren't behind a paywall? That's all I could find in a few minutes of looking last night. Well, that and places to make bets. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pariah Posted March 14, 2022 Report Share Posted March 14, 2022 Printable bracket at CBS Sports Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cancer Posted March 14, 2022 Report Share Posted March 14, 2022 Gracias. Silly of me to expect such a thing hanging off of ncaa.org, I know. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Michael Hopcroft Posted March 14, 2022 Report Share Posted March 14, 2022 How are the new legal sports books promoting March Madness. Obviosuly the NCVAA would not take their sponsorship out of sheer hnypocrisy, but pool and betting interest has been one of the Tournament's major draws for decades. If not even longer. Has anyone heard of the only team to win the NCAA and the NIT in the same year? It was the 1949-50 team from City College of New York. Thethree stars of that team came into the fledgling NBA together on the same team. That did not turn out well for the new league, or for them, because it soon came out that CCNY was heavily involved in point0-shaving. In the scheme, they deliberately saw to it that theyu won by less than the betting line. That way, the bettors for the underdog -- of which there were significantly fewer than bettors for CCNY -- got paid. That way, the bookmakers got more money for themselves and their Mafia bosses. Once it came out, these players went from heroes to criminals in one fell swoop. They lost their NBA contracts, and their team folded. CCNY's athletic department was so thoroughly disgraced that the school dropped all their sports programs, and even now only compete in Division II. Point shaving pops up its ugly head every so often in college basketball. At leats in public the NCAA takes a hard line agsainst gambling on games. Yet i would be surprised if outfits like Drsaft Kings advertise on the games. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
archer Posted March 14, 2022 Report Share Posted March 14, 2022 Can you make a profitable bet against one team winning it all? Because judging from history, Arkansas will never win regardless of how enthusiastic their fans are. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unclevlad Posted March 15, 2022 Author Report Share Posted March 15, 2022 6 hours ago, archer said: Can you make a profitable bet against one team winning it all? Because judging from history, Arkansas will never win regardless of how enthusiastic their fans are. Gonzaga is the favorite at +330...bet 100, get paid 430 for a profit of 330. That puts the converse bet...anyone but Gonzaga...would be probably -450...bet 450, make 100 if it goes that way. Possibly a little worse but you get the idea. And that's the favorite. Arkansas is already a major longshot at +4300, so it'd be at least -4500 for "anyone but Arkansas." So I suppose it depends on what you define "profitable" as. Hey, if Logan wants to be a wild and crazy optimist, Murray State is +18600. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unclevlad Posted March 17, 2022 Author Report Share Posted March 17, 2022 HECK of a first round game between Notre Dame and Rutgers. Went to double OT before ND finally squeezed out a 2 point win, breaking a tie with a bucket with 1.4 seconds left. Very competitive. I think Rutgers got tired, ultimately; their OT shooting was down a fair bit. Their bench played a total of 31 of the 250 total minutes...and scored 0 points. I was hoping, but...in the double OT, the clock hit midnight. BADDDDDDD omen for anyone going against the Irish.... Next game is only 9+ hours from now. Bye......... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unclevlad Posted March 18, 2022 Author Report Share Posted March 18, 2022 Oh my, oh my!!!! 12 seeds 2, 5 seeds 1 so far. (Saint Mary's is up 30 with 6 minutes left, I'll give that one one to them.) And one of em was the locals. NMSU 70-63 over UConn. Aggies hit 3's like crazy...33% on the season, went 11-17. Then their point guard locked the game up...tied at 58 inside of 2 minutes, he scored 11 of the last 14, including 7 for 7 from the line. Really gritty performance. 11 beat a 6 too. AND TO TOP IT OFF!!!!!!! #15 Saint Peter's takes out #2 Kentucky in OT!!! 85-79. On the FT theme? In the OT, UK was 1-6, while St Peters was 9-11. Yes indeed, the brackets have already taken some very heavy shots. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pariah Posted March 18, 2022 Report Share Posted March 18, 2022 The Mountain West Conference got a lot of recognition this season and placed four teams in the Big Dance. After Wyoming lost their play-in game on Tuesday, 6-seed Colorado State, 8-seed Boise State, and now 8-seed San Diego State all lost today. That leaves the Mountain West Conference oh-for-four and done for the tournament. (Oh, and in the NIT the other night, Utah State had a halftime lead on Oregon and then got blown out in the second half. I'm not sure why that game was in Logan instead of Eugene, but Oregon was clearly the better team.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unclevlad Posted March 18, 2022 Author Report Share Posted March 18, 2022 Oregon could've had a scheduling conflict...probably several other sports use their arena. Murray State pulls it out in OT, so Logan's happy. May well stay happy...cuz they face St. Peters rather than Kentucky. Not *too* wild a first day...crazy games, but the brackets mostly didn't explode. Yet. The first page of the ESPN Tournament Challenge is still all perfect scores. That hasn't always been the case. There's still tomorrow. EDIT: local news mentioned: first win in the tournament for NMSU since 1970 (!). They did win one in '94...but that was vacated because they'd committed serious academic fraud. They've made it 10 times in the last 15 years...not like the WAC is exactly a powerhouse...but never higher than a 12. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Logan D. Hurricanes Posted March 18, 2022 Report Share Posted March 18, 2022 Go Racers! Next up... The Peacocks?? Is that for real? Well, they beat Kentucky in a bracket buster, so this could get interesting. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pariah Posted March 18, 2022 Report Share Posted March 18, 2022 Grailknight 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Logan D. Hurricanes Posted March 18, 2022 Report Share Posted March 18, 2022 This is weird. Murray beats San Francisco, and San Francisco's consolation prize is... their coach gets hired by Florida. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unclevlad Posted March 19, 2022 Author Report Share Posted March 19, 2022 6 hours ago, Logan.1179 said: This is weird. Murray beats San Francisco, and San Francisco's consolation prize is... their coach gets hired by Florida. USF hadn't made the NCAA tournament since 1998; they'd made only 2 NITs. He also turned around an 11-14 team from last year, to a team that earned an at-large bid. THAT is impressive. It's a pretty common type of hire for a power conference. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unclevlad Posted March 19, 2022 Author Report Share Posted March 19, 2022 Quiet day 2. No big upsets so far, but Colgate and Wisconsin (14 vs 3) is tied at the first TV timeout of the second half. No one has a perfect bracket in the ESPN Tournament Challenge, with that game the last of the round. In fact, only 15 people have only 1 miss. (And 1 player knows his awesome place atop the leaderboard will crash and burn...he picked Kentucky to win the tournament. OOPS.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pariah Posted March 19, 2022 Report Share Posted March 19, 2022 (13) Chattanooga held a lead on (4) Illinois for all but 35 seconds of their game last night. Unfortunately for the Mocs, it was the last 35 seconds. Heartbreaking loss. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pariah Posted March 19, 2022 Report Share Posted March 19, 2022 It's halftime, and (1) Baylor is down 13 to (8) North Carolina. I'd be nervous for the state of my bracket if I had picked Baylor to win it all. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
unclevlad Posted March 19, 2022 Author Report Share Posted March 19, 2022 1 hour ago, Pariah said: It's halftime, and (1) Baylor is down 13 to (8) North Carolina. I'd be nervous for the state of my bracket if I had picked Baylor to win it all. National bracket on ESPN doesn't even have Baylor making the Final Four. Then again...they did have Kentucky. Even in this round...Gonzaga, Arizona, and Kansas are picked to win at least 94% of the time. Baylor...only 84%. This is going to be the round, I think, where brackets get shattered. If UNC can hold on, this game would jump start that nicely. EDIT: What's the best way to blow a 25 point lead, well into the second half? A flagrant 2, followed by a dead-ball contact technical's a good start. Then Baylor does a good job of disruption...and Carolina's completely rattled. Tie game going into OT.... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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