NCAA Tourney Thread

Big East is 1-0 as Butler takes care of Texas Tech. Butler is a really hard team for schools unfamiliar with them to play. They are so physical and unorthodox in many ways...they just wear down and frustrate opponents. Butler will beat higher seeded teams, but they never lose to lower seeded teams in the tourney.

Bummed about Duke...UNC Wilmington was my upset special today. Who would have thought Plumlee would have his career day today?

I always feel confident that Butler won't wet their pants - I'm more worried about Nova and X this year. Would be great to get all five moving on to the next round.

What's up with Tony Bennett? Went down on the YVA sidelines, then went to locker room with medical staff?

I picked Nova to win it all, I'm a sucker for punishment, but d@mn would that shut up all the talk about the BE. Feel like Jay is due one of these years.

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Originally Posted by Djgoldnboy

I picked Nova to win it all, I'm a sucker for punishment, but d@mn would that shut up all the talk about the BE. Feel like Jay is due one of these years.

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Any other region and I would have probably picked Nova to make it to the Final Four. Cannot pick against Kansas (despite their own spotty tourney history) with the way that they finished the season. That beatdown of a good Texas team in Austin a couple of weeks ago was the most impressive performance I saw all season. Not sure if we have a Final Four team, but like our chances of having a few playing in the second weekend.

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Originally Posted by Jim Ganzer, "IWB"

What's up with Tony Bennett? Went down on the YVA sidelines, then went to locker room with medical staff?

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“I think I was crouched down and was a little dehydrated and blacked out a little bit, but I’m OK.”

Yale! 21 a big baby for Baylor walking off the court at the end.

Congrats to Yale. Will give Duke a good run.

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Originally Posted by bergamont

Yale! 21 a big baby for Baylor walking off the court at the end.

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Didn't two Baylor guys get in a tussle with each other?

Every time I think of Baylor basketball I think of this sad, incredible story.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baylor...etball_scandal

So the top conference already has 2 gone.

....and down goes the Boilermakers!

12 seeds are 2 for 2 right now. Is Crean next to go down??

The Purdue game goes to show that you need two PGs on the roster. They played the OTs without a PG and it really hurt them on both ends of the court.

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Originally Posted by CaribouJim

Didn't two Baylor guys get in a tussle with each other?

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Yes, they pushed each other during a time out.

Lots of empty seats in today's games. BC always does much better (Bucky or not ).

Neither Providence nor USC wants to win. Great game gets sloppy in last few minutes and Trojans are the last to give it away. Good for the Big East though.

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Originally Posted by MayorBeluga

Neither Providence nor USC wants to win. Great game gets sloppy in last few minutes and Trojans are the last to give it away. Good for the Big East though.

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Providence wanted to win, but the three refs on the floor had other ideas. Thankfully, Providence fought through the ref show and had enough poise to pull it out in the end.

Providence vs USC game is another perfect reason why I hate home town advantage in the NCAAs.

Watching games all day and night - fans at all arenas were going crazy. The Providence/USC game was possibly the best/closest game of the night and the crowd was dead. The place was a Scooby Doo ghost town. Why? 90% of the fans were only there to see home town UNC, and as soon as that game ended - they all left. What a waste, and a true sign of how entitled UNC fans are.

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Originally Posted by Jim Ganzer, "IWB"

Providence vs USC game is another perfect reason why I hate home town advantage in the NCAAs.

Watching games all day and night - fans at all arenas were going crazy. The Providence/USC game was possibly the best/closest game of the night and the crowd was dead. The place was a Scooby Doo ghost town. Why? 90% of the fans were only there to see home town UNC, and as soon as that game ended - they all left. What a waste, and a true sign of how entitled UNC fans are.

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The home town advantage puts more butts in the seats. Take it away, and all the games would have the interest of today's St Joe's - Cincinnati game in Spokane. How many fans do you think will be there?

VS

We have plenty of locals who show at the BC without a team allegiance.

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Originally Posted by Gato78

We have plenty of locals who show at eh BC without a team allegiance.

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While that has been true in the past, I doubt it will be so going forward. I know of many people who bought tickets for the tourney games at the BC who are not buying for next year. I am among them. Combine absurdly overpriced tickets, the lack of beverages of an adult nature, a crappy game or two, a couple teams you don't care about and the ability to watch multiple games in glorious high definition from a bar or your own couch, and the NCAA has an attendance problem.

The Big East Tournamnet, on the other hand, is truly incredible. But we already knew that.

The BIG EAST Tournament, in my mind, is preferable to the NCAAs as an in-person experience. Still love NCAAs and I have ordered tickets. BET is better.

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Originally Posted by MayorBeluga

While that has been true in the past, I doubt it will be so going forward. I know of many people who bought tickets for the tourney games at the BC who are not buying for next year. I am among them. Combine absurdly overpriced tickets, the lack of beverages of an adult nature, a crappy game or two, a couple teams you don't care about and the ability to watch multiple games in glorious high definition from a bar or your own couch, and the NCAA has an attendance problem.

The Big East Tournamnet, on the other hand, is truly incredible. But we already knew that.

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They don't serve beer anymore at tourney games? I'm hating the NCAA more and more every day now.

West is tough because the west is not big on college hoops like many of the east cities, and there are normally not as many teams to draw from within a reasonable distance.

Cal is in Spokane, and San Fran is about 14 hours away. Eugene Oregon is 7 hours away. Those are the two closest teams, and unlike Milwaukee where Chicago fans come to see NCAA action, Spokane isn't really near other big cities with diverse college hoops fans.
Gonzaga gets to stay west playing in Denver, which is a 16 hour drive.

I've seen many an empty seat in Boise and other west coast places.

The in-person NCAA experience is lacking, unless your team is playing. Very few replays, no beer, and only one game at a time.

As a neutral, I'd rather be at home for the first two rounds.

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Originally Posted by MUfan12

The in-person NCAA experience is lacking, unless your team is playing. Very few replays, no beer, and only one game at a time.

As a neutral, I'd rather be at home for the first two rounds.

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Actually, it is a lot of fun for BB junkies. Hard to do four full games in a day in Round 1 though.

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Originally Posted by Nukem2

Actually, it is a lot of fun for BB junkies. Hard to do four full games in a day in Round 1 though.

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As a "BB junkie," I like being able to watch another game if the one I'm watching stinks. That's not easily done when you're at the venue.

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Originally Posted by Nukem2

Lots of empty seats in today's games. BC always does much better (Bucky or not ).

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To be fair, I have been to games at the BC that were half empty. Typically, a site is likely to get two pretty good games and a couple bad ones in the first round. I recall one year that the second game of the day was Villanova beating the snot out of somebody, and my friends and I took the opportunity to go to dinner and return for the evening games. The last one of the day was pretty good, with Texas knocking off Michigan because Michigan repeated the mistake of the previous year and called a time-out it did not have. It helped that there were plenty of drunken rodent fans there just to cheer against Michigan. But the game before that was Wake Forest beating somebody up, and not too many people hurried back from dinner to watch it.

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Originally Posted by ValiantSailor

The home town advantage puts more butts in the seats. Take it away, and all the games would have the interest of today's St Joe's - Cincinnati game in Spokane. How many fans do you think will be there?

VS

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Hell, I'd be there. That is a good game. On the occasions I had to watch the games, just showing up to watch the games is a lot of fun. Actually, there is something uniquely fun about watching a game where you really do not care who wins. I enjoy the whole experience, even if it includes watching some low seed getting killed far away from home. But that is just me I guess.

I have to say the courts this year are a huge improvement over the awful black-and-blue ones they have used in recent years. The lime green in St. Louis is a little loud for my taste, but tolerable.

TV has changed a lot, and the in game experience has not kept up.

It doesn't seem like that long ago not every game was on tv in every market, so going to games did not mean you were missing out.
Now every game is on, so guys like me last night flipped between games, and with the scores and time left of all games at the top of the screen, I knew where to change and when.

I knew there was no reason to watch Kentucky, so I didn't. But if that was the game you were at, I'd be you were in the atrium watching a tv monitor of Providence or any other game.

The NCAA or Big East or whomever needs to rethink in stadium replays. If you want me to pay top dollar for teams I don't know a year in advance, what are you going to do for me, the in arena viewer, that is better than sitting with my friends at a bar or at home. One thing you can do is let me see the replays. If there is a foul let me see it. If there is a ball out of bounds in the last minute, show me the same angles the people that didn't pay are getting.

First off, I love going to the NCAA tourney. While yes, a conference tourney will be better, that is because you are familiar with every team, you are familiar with all of the players and you are familiar with all of the fan bases.

The NCAA is different. The NCAA tournament is not about the home team crowd, it is much more than that. First off, the base is dependent upon the host school. If MU is the host school when it comes to Milwaukee - you depend on the host school's season ticket holders supporting the event. Marquette has done very well in that respect over the last two decades. Some places do not, example - New Orleans. I remember years ago New Orleans had the 1st & 2nd round because of the Final Four deal. Who is going to support it? Tulane fans? No. They ended up seeding Duke and Notre Dame there just to try and sell tickets. Fail.

Send it to cities where the host school does their job and sells tickets.

Next you have the 8 teams. They need to sell tickets. Now you need some of those teams to be close enough to drive, but you can't have all. You want a balanced crowd. Giving a school a home game does not provide a balanced crowd.

Finally you have the local basketball junkies/fans, and they buy a good number of tickets.

If you have all three categories above, you have a good mix.

When you have a city like New Orleans hosting - the #1 ticket seller is non existent.
When you have a home team like UNC in Raleigh or UW in Milwaukee, # 2 is non existent.
When you have it in Boise, #3 is non existent.

You need a balance. When you have that balance, it creates a great atmosphere. Watch the games - you can tell by the size of the crowd and the electricity of the crowd whether or not you have it in that location.

Games - Some say it is boring because of blowouts - Thank the NCAA and their BS pod system for that. You should always have a good mix...
1-16, 4-13, 5-12 and 8-9
or
2-15, 3-14, 6-13, 7-10

You have a good balance - sure, the 1-16/2-15 will be blowouts, but you get to see the best teams in the nation. 8-9/7-10 should be great games and of course the 6-13/5-12 are the upset specials. Cheer like hell for the underdog.

The pod system changed that. In a desperate move to sell tickets in undeserving markets, the NCAA created the pod system. What was it a couple years ago with the games I went to, TWO 2-15 games and Two 7-10s. Really? You need the freaking mix.

Seed it how you seed it, give preference to those within the seed and go from there.

Beer sales - NCAA has always banned beer sales. Well, now you have a good argument....

I thought the pod system was to minimize travel and let the higher seeds play close to home. I have seen some terrible 2/15 games, but it sure must have been exciting to watch Lehigh knock off Duke.

They say it is to minimize travel but that is BS. It is about getting preferred teams close to home so they can sell tickets.

It's probably both. The NCAA pays for the teams to travel to the sites right?

They pay for travel, but I think it might be more trying to get ticket sales.

The NCAA is flying teams west to east and east to west.

Arizona played in Providence, Southern Cal in North Carolina.

If they wanted to worry about travel, in the 8 v 9 games why not have Providence v. UConn and USC v Colorado.
Instead of St. Joe and Cincy in Spokane, have USC and Colorado playing in Spokane. Easy if you are really worried about travel (because who cares if you are an 8 or 9, play the same team).

Watching Michigan St getting their asses kicked right now. Darnell Harris from Middle Tennessee is the kid from Milwaukee Hamilton if I'm not mistaken. Lost track of where he went, but thought back in his high school days that he was the kind of guy Marquette could use.

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Originally Posted by MUAlphaBangura

Watching Michigan St getting their asses kicked right now. Darnell Harris from Middle Tennessee is the kid from Milwaukee Hamilton if I'm not mistaken. Lost track of where he went, but thought back in his high school days that he was the kind of guy Marquette could use.

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Harris went to UW-Whitewater, than to a Juco in Florida somewhere before transferring to MTSU.

Normally, I don't really listen to the announcers, but Gottlieb is unbearable.