March Madness: Sweet 16 discussion thread

[iggymcfly]

There's a difference between being bad on the road and being bad in a neutral environment (like the NCAAs). Georgia Tech was unequivocally bad on the road, that's not open to debate. They went 1-8.

At neutral sites though? They beat Purdue (who won a tourney game), beat Memphis (currently in the Sweet 16) and then lost the title game in Maui to UCLA (also in the Sweet 16). They played very well vs. Wake, scoring 112 points but ran into a ridiculous shooting night from Wake (16/23 from 3-point range) and lost in 2OT.

Nothing about that predicted they wouldn't play well in the tourney. They may have lost to UNLV (also currently in the Sweet 16), but that doesn't mean they shouldn't have been in the tourney.

[capone0]

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There's a difference between being bad on the road and being bad in a neutral environment (like the NCAAs). Georgia Tech was unequivocally bad on the road, that's not open to debate. They went 1-8.

At neutral sites though? They beat Purdue (who won a tourney game), beat Memphis (currently in the Sweet 16) and then lost the title game in Maui to UCLA (also in the Sweet 16). They played very well vs. Wake, scoring 112 points but ran into a ridiculous shooting night from Wake (16/23 from 3-point range) and lost in 2OT.

Nothing about that predicted they wouldn't play well in the tourney. They may have lost to UNLV (also currently in the Sweet 16), but that doesn't mean they shouldn't have been in the tourney).

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How is giving up 117 to a non-NIT team, playing well?

[MacGuyV]

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Anyone care to give their opinions on the Pitt vs UCLA game? I don't really know much about UCLA but it definitely has to be a big disavantage for Pitt to have to play this game at San Jose.

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I don't know much about ucla either. How does the pac-10 not have a contract with espn?
Anyway the teams seem to be very similar but ucla just a little better @everything (including coaching) plus the homecourt...looks like a tall order for Pitt. G/L

[capone0]

UNLV had beaten tourney teams on the road this year. They had just won their conference tourney. I'm not saying UNLV was that great but they were a very solid team. You guys keep acting like GT was a final 4 candidate.

[alekhine8]

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#1 Kansas vs #4 Southern Illinois
#2 Memphis vs #3 Texas A&M
#3 Pittsburgh vs #2 U.C.L.A.
#1 Ohio St. vs #5 Tennessee

#1 Florida vs #5 Butler
#6 Vanderbilt vs #2 Georgetown
#7 U.N.L.V. vs #3 Oregon
#1 North Carolina vs #5 Southern California

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I am a UF alum/homer so take my opinion with a grain of salt - I don't think Butler has the horses to win this one. I think Florida can get to the Final Four without playing its best basketball, but I am favoring Kansas to beat them right now given how they are playing.

I think the #2/#3 matchups on Thursday could be good, as well as UNLV-Oregon. I think the higher seeds prevail in the other five, with UT having the best chance of pulling an upset of a #1 seed. They have no personnel to match up with Oden, but they play such a pesky style of defense that it will be difficult for OSU to get him the ball in good positions.

[chaseUdown]

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UNLV had beaten tourney teams on the road this year. They had just won their conference tourney. I'm not saying UNLV was that great but they were a very solid team. You guys keep acting like GT was a final 4 candidate.

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Nope, just saying GT should of won the game.

[chaseUdown]

"I don't think Butler has the horses to win this one."

They don't. They are no better than Purdue. I haven't looked at the line but I'm assuming it is FL -9 or -10.

[viciouspenguin]

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Anyone care to give their opinions on the Pitt vs UCLA game? I don't really know much about UCLA but it definitely has to be a big disavantage for Pitt to have to play this game at San Jose.

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ucla wins by 10+ imo. pitt should not give ucla any trouble. gray wont be an issue because big men who arent great passers tend to struggle against ucla's aggressive double teams. on the flip side big men who are good passers (florida's big men, etc) are capable of hurting ucla. afflalo wasnt in rhythm against indiana and its rare that he is out of rhythm for two games in a row. ucla tends to lose when playing worse teams, because they come out slow (and overconfident, it seems). pitt in general has not been impressive, but pitt is a big name and psychologically ucla will be awake. also ucla has only one loss on neutral courts and none at home courts.

[iggymcfly]

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How is giving up 117 to a non-NIT team, playing well?

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Teams can come up with varying degrees of performance. That night, Wake shot the lights out. They may have been a sub-100 team over the course of the season, but the way they played that night, I doubt that there were more than 10 teams in the country that would have beaten them. When a team's regularly making contested threes, there's really not that much you can do about that as a defense. If Georgia Tech played as well against UNLV as they did against Wake, they'd probably still be alive right now.

[ligastar]

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"I don't think Butler has the horses to win this one."

They don't. They are no better than Purdue. I haven't looked at the line but I'm assuming it is FL -9 or -10.

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FLA -10.5