The Big 12 is just so damn loaded. As I had said somewhere yesterday, I was ready to take KU to win the conference at +450 until I saw their schedule the rest of the way.
Best conference in basketball and I don't think it's even close. Good question on the 6 losses. That would be a tough one for the committee.
I remember everyone thought the same about this time last year. They ended up with 7 teams in the tourney, but none made it to the FF. Overall they may be the deepest, but do they have a dominant team that can win it all?
Yeah, the conventional wisdom has Houston and Kansas at the top, but they are showing cracks.
I said they were the best conference in Basketball. Do you have a conference that you think is better? If so, name them and we can compare the 2.
It's likely the 2-seed will be someone we've played (and beaten) before. At least at this point. Kansas and Houston can't be in the same region. UConn and Marquette can't be in the same region. So you have limited options.
Tennessee will be our #2 seed. Book it right now. Seriously, they worry me the most of the current #2 candidates so of course I think we get them!!
Well let’s root for them to run through the SEC and get a 1 seed to drop KU and HOU to 2 seeds
Nope. Some here think if a team from your conference doesn't win the NC, they aren't the best. Others think the conference needs to get into the FF to be considered the best. Others think it's the number of teams ranked in the Top 20 by their favorite ranking service. I'll let you debate it with those guys.
UNC loses at home to Clemson
So you don't have an opinion about which conference is best right now? It seemed like maybe you did but didn't want to say it. I'd be happy to debate with you or anyone that thinks the B12 isn't the best. No right or wrong, just opinions.
That is correct. I often times see that a conference is considered weak, and then they have multiple teams advance far in the tournament. Then I see conferences that are considered the strongest, and they bomb in the tournament. That was my point about this being the 2nd year in a row that the B12 was considered the strongest conference. I stopped paying attention to conference strength a long time ago. The "experts" are rarely correct.
Stating that a particular conference is the strongest right now, has nothing to do with tournament success 6 weeks from now. If we are strictly using tournament success in the future, then of course it would be impossible to say who is the best. The future hasn't happened yet.....But I really don't think that was what was being discussed. It's a question of who do we think has the strongest conference right now. It would be very difficult to come up with an argument for anyone other than the B12. That was the point.
Correct me if wrong, but I believe the last 3 times Purdue has played them it was always very close with Purdue winning 2. Any athletic team that plays good D which will be physical D and the refs have a slow whistle can make it tough on Purdue.
And I wasn't arguing against that point. I just find it interesting to see how the conference considered to be the strongest finishes in the end.
I do not want to see UT and PU on the same court.
My concern this year, is that Ziegler was no where near 100% when we played them in Hawaii. He is like night and day difference now. As I'm writing this they would more likely be a #1 than a #2, but if they are a #2, I don't want them in the elite 8.
I knew three, but couldn't remember 4. I always look to you to correct what I can't recall off the top of my head and so don't ever stray from that because I want to know the truth...
Here is the thing. NCAA tourney wins don't mean the best team won. If the same teams played next week, the results would be different. If the brackets were scrambled a different result would again happen on that same day. If the games were adjusted a few hours things might be different.
If we’re the overall #1, they shouldn’t be the 2 in our region, right?
It is common knowledge among coaches that the only way to beat the Boilers is to foul, foul, foul and hope they either get winded blowing the whistle or the Boilers have a bad day at the line.
If the season ended today, no I don't think they would be the #2 in our region. But a lot of games to play yet. My point was that if they end up being a #2, I don't want them.
Bracketology myth. Geography plays more of a role than keeping the S-curve perfect. The committee has a goal of keeping the regions balanced by overall seed in seeds 1-4, but it's not an absolute. So yes, the #5 overall could be paired with the #1 overall, then they would balance more with the 3 and 4 seeds.
Agreed. If Purdue played FDU 100 times last year, they would win 99. Unfortunately, the best team did not win that night.
I am not sure that I agree. I really felt like Purdue entered last year’s tournament in a bad place mentally demonstrating an inability to close out games and limit turnovers down the stretch. It was also not a confident shooting team. FDU just needed Purdue to feel the pressure and they had a shot.
I can agree with both of you. FDU was very quick and all you said was true IMO. That said Purdue only needed to shoot slightly better and they still would have won. The shots were many times as good as you could ask for behind the arc...and of course hitting a couple helps with that confidence
100% agree that the looks were great, but I also sensed a lot of hesitation by the players to take those shots, which is why I think that the loss wasn’t a total fluke.
There definitely a lack of confidence...no question. The pressure mounted as the game went on. That pressure was not nearly as great though in the early shots. The start of the game I doubt any Purdue player thought would be a loss or that they would play poor enough to not win. Not stopping FDU and then continual misses "early" led to most of that lack of confidence we saw later in the game. If Purdue makes some early...prior to those misses, Purdue may have shot better overall. Nobody wanted a shot late, but not sure that was in play in the early part of the game when Purdue missed great looks. This team is absolutely different on defense...on the different ways it can score, and currently has several players playing at a high level.
