2020-21 College Basketball Discussion and Pick'em Thread

[GeorgiaModerate]

Oklahoma State, playing without Cade Cunningham, just won at West Virginia 85-80.

[JGibson]

Hoping and praying Illinois get a #1 seed in the Big Dance and win it all.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Hoping and praying Illinois get a #1 seed in the Big Dance and win it all.

If they hang on in this game, I think they're really likely to get a #1.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Hoping and praying Illinois get a #1 seed in the Big Dance and win it all.

If they hang on in this game, I think they're really likely to get a #1.

And they did, finishing on a 9-0 run to win 73-68.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Duke trails North Carolina 42-26 at the half, and with the way they're playing they're lucky it's not even worse.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

Woah! The America East title game is UMass-Lowell (1st title appearance) and Hartford (2nd title appearance), each looking to punch their first NCAA ticket. This is the first title game without Albany or Vermont in a decade. Lowell has only been eligible for a few seasons, but Hartford has 36 years of futility to erase (T 16th longest time tenure without a bid and 25th longest drought)

[YE]

No Belmont lost 

Morehead State and Liberty are the first two tickets punched.

[NewYorkExpress]

So, with Michigan's loss to Michigan State today, did they just cost themselves a #1 seed? I don't think they did, but they might need to actually win the Big Ten Tournament to be sure of getting a #1 seed now.

[GeorgiaModerate]

So, with Michigan's loss to Michigan State today, did they just cost themselves a #1 seed? I don't think they did, but they might need to actually win the Big Ten Tournament to be sure of getting a #1 seed now.

No, their body of work is still strong enough to justify the #1 seed.  Possibly if they lose their first Big Ten tourney game it would be at risk, but it would depend on what others do.

[JGibson]

In my opinion, the Illini are the real Big Ten regular season champs (or at least co-champs with Michigan).

[YE]

So, with Michigan's loss to Michigan State today, did they just cost themselves a #1 seed? I don't think they did, but they might need to actually win the Big Ten Tournament to be sure of getting a #1 seed now.

I don’t think I’ve seen a year with such clear cut #1 seeds.

[GeorgiaModerate]

So, with Michigan's loss to Michigan State today, did they just cost themselves a #1 seed? I don't think they did, but they might need to actually win the Big Ten Tournament to be sure of getting a #1 seed now.

I don’t think I’ve seen a year with such clear cut #1 seeds.

2008: the four #1 seeds Kansas, Memphis, North Carolina, and UCLA were clearly at a higher level than everyone else.  I believe this is still the only year (at least in the modern era) in which all four #1's made it to the Final Four.

[YE]

So, with Michigan's loss to Michigan State today, did they just cost themselves a #1 seed? I don't think they did, but they might need to actually win the Big Ten Tournament to be sure of getting a #1 seed now.

I don’t think I’ve seen a year with such clear cut #1 seeds.

2008: the four #1 seeds Kansas, Memphis, North Carolina, and UCLA were clearly at a higher level than everyone else.  I believe this is still the only year (at least in the modern era) in which all four #1's made it to the Final Four.

Wasn’t Kansas not expected to be a 1 seed that year and Tennessee was?

[GeorgiaModerate]

So, with Michigan's loss to Michigan State today, did they just cost themselves a #1 seed? I don't think they did, but they might need to actually win the Big Ten Tournament to be sure of getting a #1 seed now.

I don’t think I’ve seen a year with such clear cut #1 seeds.

2008: the four #1 seeds Kansas, Memphis, North Carolina, and UCLA were clearly at a higher level than everyone else.  I believe this is still the only year (at least in the modern era) in which all four #1's made it to the Final Four.

Wasn’t Kansas not expected to be a 1 seed that year and Tennessee was?

Tennessee was highly ranked, even getting up to #1 briefly after knocking off then-#1 Memphis (the Tigers' only loss other than the championship). But after a couple of late stumbles they were clearly behind the top four, as I recall it. I could be wrong.

That was also the year a tornado hit downtown Atlanta and the Georgia Dome while the SEC Tournament was being played there, forcing the rest of the tourney to move to Georgia Tech's arena. And the Georgia Bulldogs pulled off a miraculous tournament sweep and went to the NCAA as a #14 seed (possibly the lowest seed ever for a major conference team, I'm not sure.) That was an awful storm system with many tornadoes; one passed close enough to my house that I actually heard it, and I got a new roof from the hail damage.

[GeorgiaModerate]

*** FINAL PICK'EM RESULTS ***

I won the week at 19-9, three games ahead of Illiniwek.  Full results:

19 GeorgiaModerate
16 Illiniwek
15 NY Express
14 Donerail
7 YE

Overall there wasn't much suspense at the top as I pulled away over the last several weeks.  However, YE managed to overtake JGibson for 5th by a single game. Final standings (433 games):

287 GeorgiaModerate
270 Donerail
252 NY Express
218 Illiniwek
81 YE
80 JGibson
32 CraneHusband
27 dfw
6 Orwell

Best weeks:

37-6 (.860) Donerail, week 7
22-5 (.815) GeorgiaModerate, week 13
34-9 (.791) GeorgiaModerate, week 7

Most weeks won or shared first:

8 GeorgiaModerate (including last 7 in a row)
5 Donerail
1 dfw, Illiniwek, JGibson

It's been fun!  Thanks for playing.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Ken Pomeroy's conference tournament forecasts: https://kenpom.com/blog/conference-tourney-forecasts/.  Not surprisingly, Gonzaga is the biggest favorite to win its tournament (83%).

[NewYorkExpress]

Thanks for playing, and don't forget to post your NCAA Tournament brackets here!

[Illiniwek]

In my opinion, the Illini are the real Big Ten regular season champs (or at least co-champs with Michigan).

I don't enjoy fighting this kind of battle, because it makes us look small. But it's insane they don't crown Illinois as co-champs. The belittling from Michigan fans are pathetic: "Cry more." "Are there even Illinois fans?" "What a terrible sports school." Illinois kicked there you-know-what without our best player, and we finished a half-game up in the standings! Co-champs doesn't hurt anyone. There is no reason not to do this, other than poor conference leadership, and giving everything to the legacy school.

The best way to put all of speculation to doubt is for Illinois to win the conference tournament. No one will be able to deny Illinois was the best team in the conference this year if we do so. Hopefully they have the motivation to take care of business.

[GeorgiaModerate]

The first conference tourney game to be canceled due to COVID:

https://twitter.com/Harry_MiniumODU/status/1369034947701399558

[NewYorkExpress]

Don't look now, but it's half time in the WCC title game, and BYU leads Gonzaga 53-41.

[NewYorkExpress]

And Gonzaga has stormed back to take an 82-76 lead with less than a minute to go.

Barring a miracle, Gonzaga will enter the NCAA Tournament undefeated.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Gonzaga hit another gear in that second half. BYU gave it their all, but the Zags are just too good.

[GeorgiaModerate]

Xavier's bubble pops with a 70-69 OT loss to Butler in the Big East tournament.

[GeorgiaModerate]

https://twitter.com/GoodmanHoops/status/1370031531448745990

Somehow a fitting end to an underwhelming season for Duke.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

Xavier's bubble pops with a 70-69 OT loss to Butler in the Big East tournament.

An epic redux of the final completed game of the 2019-20 season in which Xavier also lost to the #10 seed to knock them out of consideration for the Big Dance before everyone was knocked out. The mulligan going awry is so sweet! They're still trying to schedule games this weekend but doubt they are going to have much luck. I guess Louisville is available for a de facto play-in game but why would Chris Mack reduce himself to that and put Xavier back on his level? Maybe Saint Louis wants to give it one last shot?

Unfortunately for Louisville, they could probably use the game. The St. John's-Seton Hall winner alone could knock them out (especially with a free shot against extremely short-handed Villanova in tow), and if not, Utah State (albeit more likely to take out a conference rival) or the AAC runner-up will have a very respectable case to knock out Louisville or Ole Miss. One last win could really prove the difference unless COVID opens up a few spots unexpectedly.