2025 March Madness

ode Wisco got screwed being sent West after 4 games in a row in the conference tournament.

Meh, I don't know about "screwed". I've seen similar scenarios in being "sent" wherever. It's the tournament and regions won't necessarily be evenly distributed across the country. Can only play what's on your schedule.

ode Gonna be a BYU fan and cheer them on....lot to like!

Because of my Pitt connection, I'm more familiar with the ACC. But now, I'm hoping for BYU. In particular, their "big guy" looks like he might have the tools to defend Duke's Cooper Flagg? I hope they get the shot at Duke.

professor Long way to go before the Duke-BYU match-up could develop. I think it might be an interesting game, but I have watched Flagg a lot and I don't think anybody on the BYU team is a good match-up. Anything could happen, and BYU did beat Kansas by 37 points earlier this year, but imsusledt BYU, if it gets that far, would be over matched by Duke.

Time will tell. Most of the time, match-ups that people think about end up not happening.

By the way, BYU is going to be joined next season by the top freshman in the country, AJ Dybantsa (next year's Cooper Flagg), so they will probably continue to be a force in college basketball for a while, regardless of what happens in the tournament.

I thought Florida would be the team to beat in this tournament and it looked like UConn was going to take them down.

24,388,544 brackets on ESPN broken after Kentucky win. That is a lot of people with nothing better to do.

Bravopilot

Hey, it’s March. What else is there to do?

azgreg SEC

Quite the league this year!

B1G good showing in rd. 1 and hung.on in rd. 2.

azgreg
That one remaining ACC team is the best in the field.

azgreg

You and Sir Charles. I have no horse in the race. And, can’t stand Duke!

NIL Before NIL!
Although I do miss Bobby Knight!

professor I have no affiliation with Indiana, but have actively rooted against them ever since they sent Bobby Knight away.

azgreg Being more likeable than Coach K? There's an extremely low bar.

Fixed it.

Terps!

I heard a little "editorial" on sports talk radio about the NIL and money affecting NCAA basketball. It was hysterical! Why? Because big schools, with big programs have always had big Booster money anyhow. What's really the difference?

professor helps out those universities like Marquette and Creighton too that are small in comparison yet have big$ boosters. Creighton basically has a new team every year. I suspect there are quite a few universities with similar enrollment yet big$ boosters. SMU another one. It levels the playing field against the prior cheaters, but it still fucks those programs that like to develop players and have longevity.

ode Nobody keeps and develops players anymore. Every team is recruiting every season. This isn't all because of NIL; there used to be a rule that if you transferred schools you had to sit out an entire season. Now you can play right away.

There are now literally seniors who have played for four different schools in their four years.

rsvman2 Wisconsin does. Ironic however the guy they got, John Tonje, was a star, and without him they would have likely stunk. But then they lost two guys, Connor Essegian, he went to Nebraska; and Chucky Hepburn went to Louisville. I can't explain what happened to these guys in the 2023-24 season, but they were both dead weight, compared.to what they did in 2022-23, both showing tremendous upside. Chucky started and Essegian turned out.to be a key reserve. They both went on to have good seasons, Chucky making a pretty good splash in the ACC. Likely good for both of them that they left, but it definitely makes me wonder if they stay and pull their heads out of their asses, how good they would have been this year with Blackwell and Essegian coming off the bench. IMO with Gard's new approach to scoring those two staying put, would have been huge for depth and scoring. Wisconsin does not get blue chippers,literally EVERY in state blue chipper goes elsewhere. The list is mind numbing and makes me want to puke. But Bo Ryan came and changed the entire mindset with the program and they did it through development. In the Dekker/Kaminski era when they went to consecutive final 4s and to the final game the 2nd year. Those teams were amazing yet none.of those guys were highly sought after or MacD,s all Americans. NIL is making it.next to impossible to do that anymore because pieces would have been taken away. They would still have been good because of Dekker and Kaminski, but pieces would have been taken away, it's simply too tempting for some of these players. Where Kaminski started to where he ended was truly amazing. A note on Tonje, he didn't do much before coming to Wisconsin, but man he had a helluva year, so it's not as if we got a name, but he turned into that. I hope what this does is offer the in state phenoms a window into what they could do by staying home.