Marcus: Pitino says he'll look at scheduling not as tough of a schedule

[Winasota Gopher]

The 68 team format is a mess. Some poor teams get automatics while some mediocre team get left out. Then you see Mercer beat Duke and few other upsets. You have to be basketball psycho to care before the Sweet Sixteen.

What!?!?

You don't make sense

 

[Holy Man]

The 68 team format is a mess. Some poor teams get automatics while some mediocre team get left out. Then you see Mercer beat Duke and few other upsets. You have to be basketball psycho to care before the Sweet Sixteen.

I find the first weekend to be the most entertaining, even if the most exasperating on my pool. Maybe not the best basketball, but certainly the most exciting on a consistent basis. Six OT games, lots of close ones, a few big upsets, and several near misses. Pretty good weekend even for those of with all our brain chemistry in proper order.

 

[Maximus]

Time to go back to 64 teams.

Do we really need the last four at-large teams in the tournament?....NO. If your team is one of those teams you might think they do but REALLY?

Tennessee is a win over Mercer away from the Sweet Sixteen.

LaSalle made it to the Sweet Sixteen last year.

South Florida made it to the Sweet Sixteen in 2012.

VCU made it to the Final Four in 2011.

 

[cjbfbp]

If you replace Syracuse and Arkansas with easy wins, we probably get in to the tournament. I don't think we should stop playing the primetime non-conference tourneys, but it is definitely something to think about. Usually the committee encourages strong schedules, they went away from that this year.

The committee didn't move away from that principle. That's probably why SMU wasn't invited despite having 23 wins in the regular season, being ranked, and beating UCON twice and Cinci and Memphis once.

The Gophers finished 8-10 in their conference and were only 3-7 against the top 6 teams in the conference. They only beat an NIT bound team (at home) in the nonconference schedule. Their schedule was just fine and was a positive factor, but, as another poster said, they needed to take care of business by beating a couple more good teams. Maybe SMU and possibly Arkansas were wrongly snubbed but Minnesota was not.

 

[cjbfbp]

Actually just last season, two Big Ten teams, Illinois and our very own Golden Gophers, lost as many conference games as this team did and made the tournament. .

All the more reason why those two teams shouldn't have been invited this year. Have you ever heard the expression "two wrongs don't make a right?"

The difference between this year's and last year's Gopher team is that last year's team started out the season 15-1 and had some very good wins during the season. Last year's team was a bit like this year's Iowa team. They impressed a lot of people early in the season before tanking at the end. This year's team never had a particularly impressive stretch. In fact, they won two conference games in a row only twice and three of those games were against Penn State and the other was against Purdue.

 

[howeda7]

Wren basketball doesn't work the way football does, the only reason the gophers made the dance last year was because of their non conference success, committee looks at the body of work, also in football as the corruption of bowl system shows, conference wins don't really matter in that sport as long as a team is eligible

Big Ten wins! Big Ten wins! Big Ten wins!

 

[howeda7]

Time to go back to 64 teams.

Do we really need the last four at-large teams in the tournament?....NO. If your team is one of those teams you might think they do but REALLY?

Some of the best games are on the first weekend. Gives the small schools a shot at the big boys in a lot of games. If you're one of the big boys you better not think you can just show up.

That's not going to happen. I only hope they put off the move to 96 permanently.

 

[howeda7]

The road/neutral thing is what killed us. Last year we beat Memphis and Stanford on neutral courts and FSU and Illinois on the road. This year we beat Penn State on a neutral court and Penn State and NW on the road. Huge difference.

 

[station19]

Tennessee is a win over Mercer away from the Sweet Sixteen.

LaSalle made it to the Sweet Sixteen last year.

South Florida made it to the Sweet Sixteen in 2012.

VCU made it to the Final Four in 2011.

Doesn't mean they need to be in the tournament. You could add 20 more teams and they might be able to win a game also.

Point is 32 at large teams is enough.

 

[station19]

That's not going to happen. I only hope they put off the move to 96 permanently.

Agreed and agreed.

 

[jaymil]

The road/neutral thing is what killed us. Last year we beat Memphis and Stanford on neutral courts and FSU and Illinois on the road. This year we beat Penn State on a neutral court and Penn State and NW on the road. Huge difference.

Yep, and some of our good wins got worse and worse as the season went on (Richmond, FSU, Iowa). It's obvious the committee puts a priority on having some quality wins away from home and we fell short in that area this year. RPI and SOS aren't everything.