2022 NCAA Basketball Discussion Thread

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I always cheer against Vanderbilt in basketball because of their terrible court design in the benches on the end instead of the sides. Why is that even allowed?

(Also, I was there for this dagger-to-the-heart, which sucked: https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/recap?gameId=280650238)

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Yikes. Not to trivialize what may be very real and important issues, I hope that there aren't any allegations that go back farther than about 10 months ago...

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Florida Atlantic had a NET of 17 going into today. It will fall a little, but they should be very safely in the NCAA field, assuming they don't have any bad losses.

What is the point of even having the NET rankings if a team in the top 20 isn't selected?

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FAU now at 22 in the NET. I think they would need to drop at least 10 more spots to be in any danger of getting left out. Of course losing to a bad team in the CUSA Tournament could do that.

I really don't like the lack of transparency in the NET. In the RPI days, I kept my own spreadsheet and knew exactly what any game would do to everyone's RPI. It was good that any school or member of the public could double check the rankings. I've never seen an exact NET formula, so who knows if the NCAA has ever made a mistake?

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https://twitter.com/JonRothstein/status/1629123901308403712

The SEC is full of very good jobs (especially with Texas and Oklahoma joining soon), so Ole Miss may get lost in the shuffle in-conference.

Also, I'm a bit surprised Kermit Davis was fired before Mark Fox, Patrick Ewing, Jerod Haase or Wayne Tinkle.

Anyways, my best guess as to who will be the next head coach at Ole Miss.

Florida Atlantic Head Coach Dusty May
College of Charleston Head Coach Pat Kelsey
North Texas Head Coach Grant McCasland
Former Texas Head Coach Chris Beard
Furman Head Coach Bob Richey

Lot of rumors that Beard is the target

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While neither is technically a lock yet, Mississippi State got the huge win over Texas A&M and should be safely in the field if we beat South Carolina and Vanderbilt to close out the season.

This after the women's team essentially punched their ticket with a big win on Thursday.

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The Mississippi State-Vanderbilt game Saturday is such a huge one for both teams.

Hopefully we get the same result as the 2021 College World Series, or the GSROAT (2018).

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There's no way the NCAA would let a football team force the teams to line up in the end zone, or a baseball team put the dugouts in the outfield. Letting Vanderbilt basketball put benches along the ends instead of the sides is ridiculous. It's not like there's not enough room on the sides - there's actual way more than typical.

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There's no way the NCAA would let a football team force the teams to line up in the end zone, or a baseball team put the dugouts in the outfield. Letting Vanderbilt basketball put benches along the ends instead of the sides is ridiculous. It's not like there's not enough room on the sides - there's actual way more than typical.

The extra side area is due to the strange raised court, isn't it?  A safety measure to keep players from running off the edge.

I agree the design is terrible, but at least the coaches are allowed to come up the sidelines to the regular coaching box limit.

I don't know if it's technically a safety thing, but the Vanderbilt cheerleaders are sitting along the sidelines where chairs for the players could be. There's way more distance between the side line and the dropoff there than any other SEC arena has between the sidelines and the first row of seats.

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And the bubble may just burst for Mississippi State. Absolutely brutal.

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And the bubble may just burst for Mississippi State. Absolutely brutal.

Mississippi State's still alive in my opinion, though they probably need to beat one of Alabama/Tennessee/Kentucky in the SEC Tournament.

Their resume is similar to North Carolina's just in a stronger conference than the Tar Heels.

Assuming we get by Florida on Thursday (a team we already lost to at home ) we'll get Alabama on Friday. I agree winning that one probably gets us in, but a loss and I suspect we're a 1 seed in the NIT, or maybe one of the play-ins if there aren't any bid-stealers or good runs from other bubble teams.

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And the bubble may just burst for Mississippi State. Absolutely brutal.

Mississippi State's still alive in my opinion, though they probably need to beat one of Alabama/Tennessee/Kentucky in the SEC Tournament.

Their resume is similar to North Carolina's just in a stronger conference than the Tar Heels.

Assuming we get by Florida on Thursday (a team we already lost to at home ) we'll get Alabama on Friday. I agree winning that one probably gets us in, but a loss and I suspect we're a 1 seed in the NIT, or maybe one of the play-ins if there aren't any bid-stealers or good runs from other bubble teams.

Joe Lunardi (IMO not the best bracketologist, but the most well-known) has the Bulldogs in the field among the "Last Four In" this morning, which would indeed put them in the First Four in Dayton.  So yeah, they probably need either a couple wins in the SEC tournament or for there to be very few bid thieves and bubble teams that get hot and overtake them.

Lunardi also has Vanderbilt among "Next Four Out".

Mississippi State's best hope is that there aren't any upsets in the conference tournaments that take bubble bids away. If we beat Florida on Thursday and lose to Alabama and the bubble says as large/soft as it currently is, I think we're probably better than 50-50 to sneak in, but that dries up quickly with a few upsets.

Obviously we need to beat Alabama next Friday, which I assume would lock up a bid, even if a few bids get stolen.

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I doubt Beard is headed back to Texas Tech.

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https://twitter.com/GoodmanHoops/status/1633539952473694208

So on brand for that trash program.

I'll throw in the disclaimer that I know many decent enough people who went to Ole Miss for college, but that hardcore athletic culture there is rotten to the core.

Not as bad as Auburn obviously, but that literally wouldn't be possible I don't think.

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There's no point in even calculating the NET rankings if you're going to give the #82 team an at large bid, implying they're one of the 46 most deserving teams.

It's one thing to give one to a team in the high 40s or 50s because it doesn't have to be 100% dependent on NET (though honestly that would probably be a better system than a committee that just makes up what criteria do and don't matter on the fly), but 80s or even 70s is just too far in my eyes.

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Rick Stansbury has resigned as Head Coach of Western Kentucky.

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A little nervous for both Mississippi State men and women today, but I'm fairly confident they'll both get good news on the selection shows. Neither has a particularly good resume, but I think ultimately both are going to be "good enough."

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A huge ... sigh of ... re-lee-eeff!

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I expected we were probably going to be left out because of the stupid NET, but I wasn't expecting to not even be one of the First Four Out.

I'm not a NET defender per se, but it's not like KenPom or Torvik ranks Vanderbilt any higher. If you judge the entire season equally rather than weighting the end higher, Vanderbilt's resume just doesn't cut it.

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Mississippi State (11) women's basketball beats Creighton (6), setting up a rematch of the 2018 national championship game (a dark, brutal moment of sports history) with Notre Dame (3).