Akaoni is at it again, 8-1 for the week bringing home the bacon, but can he win any conferences? His best teams (which are really damn good) are NOT in first place in their conferences, Texas is 2 games back from Kansas, Syracuse is a half game back from Villanova... How can he keep winning game after game and still not be winning conferences? Lucky bastard I say.
The REALLY exciting race
As I update the leaderboard every day, the "race" that has been fascinating me the most is the race for SECOND PLACE. Boaris, Gunz, and until recently Jaybird have been jockeying back and forth between 2nd and 4th, with every day one leaping the other. Jaybird finally tanked two weeks ago and is struggling this week, but Gunz and Boaris are neck and neck and keeping pace just 20 or so points behind Akaoni.
Wednesday Gunz went 3-2 for 5 points to pull ahead of Boaris (2-2 for 4 pts). Last night Boaris nailed 5 points (3-0) tying up Gunz (2-0 for 4 pts). On Saturday they have two head to head games against each other:
- Miss St (Gunz) vs. Florida (Boaris) in the SEC. Both teams are 16-6 with 3 losses a piece in conference.
- BYU (Boaris) vs. UNLV (Gunz) in the Mountain West. UNLV at 18-4 has managed to stay just a game behind red hot BYU (22-2), and BYU won the last meeting, but this one is in Vegas.
We now have a four way tie for first place - at 6-4! Including Arizona (Turtle), UCLA (Gunz), California (Babs) and Arizona St (Illinois Guy). Seriously, WTF? Some are suggesting that the Pac 10 could be a single bid conference this year. I'm guessing two bids - who ever wins the tournament, and who ever finishes with the best conference record.
CONFERENCES
If it were all over today, who would be winning the conferences?
- The CEO (37 pts) - Big 10, Big West, MEAC, MVC, OVC, Summit,
- Boaris (31 pts) - Big 12, MAAC, MWC, WCC(tie), WAC(tie),
- Babblemur (26 pts) - SEC(tie), Pac 10(tie), Atl Sun, Horizon,
- Gunz (20 pts) - ACC, Pac 10(tie), Colonial
- NotaTurtle (19 pts) - Pac 10(tie), CUSA(tie), WCC(tie)
- Phunmunki (13 pts) Big East, Atl 10,
- Jaybird (13 pts) - SEC(tie), Colonial(tie)
- Some Guy in Illinois (13 pts) - Pac 10(tie), CUSA(tie)
- Akaoni (12 pts) - Big South, SoCon
- Jutdog (12 pts) - Ivy, WAC(tie)
NINETY SIX
Lastly, what do you think about a 96 Team Tournament???
15 comments:
Terrible idea.
Way to stomp all over Jut's post, Ron.
Tourney expansion seems fine - you're going to see a playin for teams in the 13-16 range hopefully. That wouldn't be so bad.
I think that I snag the Southern, WAC, Ivy, and hopefully the Big East. Lots needed for that one though. The Big 12 and SEC aren't completely gone either, but not looking so good.
I do believe that Radford wins the conf tourney, for what its worth.
Good work for the CEO though.
I just scanned the ESPN Bracketology:
http://sports.espn.go.com/ncb/bracketology
Which is estimating that I will get SEVEN teams into the tournament. Bam.
Yep, California had best start winning for that to happen.
That loss tonight by Jville doesn't help either.
And finally, does anyone really think 4 teams from the A10 are going? Charlotte hopes so.
~ jut
Babs, you have uncovered my strategy for all the other players to see, now if only I had grabbed Syracuse instead of Cincy.......
-The CEO
I had a lot of thoughts reading the articles this week when I was reading the thoughts of expanding the NCAA Tourney.
I don't think expanding to a number like 96 seems like that good of an idea. For one, the exclusivity of the NCAA tourney is something that makes it so special. Not to mention that expanding it to 64 immediately made it the most popular office pool regarding sports in the country, one in which actual knowledge of the game means so little that the office secretary picking the cutest mascot has as much of a chance as a columnist for ESPN (who have some of the most boring prognostications ever, usually.) Also, it can be argued that everyone is in the Tournament (short of 7 IVY league teams) come Championship Week.
But I do think a small expansion would be, and I have a plan. Hopefully, the powers to be are regular readers of the babblemur posts, because quite frankly, I think this is a great idea.
First, I have two major qualms about the selections and structure every year. First of all, I hate the play-in game. I think it deprives one of the teams from playing in a "real" tourney game against one of the big boys. The first two days are the best because of the David v. Goliath games, and one of those two teams gets deprived the opportunity to put a rock in the sling shot, so to speak.
Also, I think the mid-majors (especially those who proved to be the consistently best team in their league by winning the regular season championship) get robbed more than anyone. Everyone points to "strength of schedule", RPI ratings, etc, and I agree they don't match up with many of the mid-majors. The problem with that thinking, though, is that the big boys have absolutely no incentive to walk into one of the small boys' gyms, and they simply don't do that. A great example that immediately comes to mind this year is Cornell losing by 5 in Lawrence. Different result in the other gym. We'll never find out because that never happens.
So, this is what I would do. I would add an 11.5 seed and a 12.5 seed in each region to expand to 72 teams. The 11 seed would play 12.5, the 11.5 seed would play the 12 seed as "play-in" games. These seeds would be required to always be at-large bids (the final 4 seeds in the region would be the filled in automatic bids from the smaller conferences, which would mean they would always get a shot at wearing the slipper.) If a mid-major automatic qualifer is better than that, there's no problem seeding them 10th or higher.
This keeps the exclusivity of the tourney, gives everyone a shot at the "one shining moment" (yes, I'm trying to jam as many cliches into this post as possible), justifies the selection committee in picking those borderline mid-major teams and giving them a shot to play for keeps against a disappointing major team (Wichita State vs. UConn or Old Dominion vs. UNC, this year, for example), and doesn't screw up the format for office pools (40 "1st" round games, instead of 32, would be the only difference), and would lessen the arguments of the 5 teams who believe they are #73, though this is a problem no matter where the cutoff is, unless the tourney becomes all-exclusive, which I believe would screw up the charm.
Some might say this gives the 5 and 6 seeds a bit of an advantage, as they would get to play a team that needed to win to get there, potentially making them tired, but we are talking about some pretty good athletes playing with some adrenaline, so I don't think that's too much of an issue (not to mention the top 4 seeds are still playing against someone who are in the tourney because they won 3 straight games the week before, and little else.)
-The Gunz
solid rational and well thought out Gunz, as someone who hasn't worked or gone to school on the Thurs and Frid of opening week since middle school, I like to think of myself as a little tourney expert, and this suggestion makes sense
-The CEO
Dayton, G-Town, Providence, and St John's making this appear to be the start to a very exciting Sat.....
-The CEO
Richmond over Temple and Dayton over Xavier is making the Atlantic 10 a hot competition. Expand the Tournament! Let them all in!
My take on the expand-the-field talk is that opening it up to 72 or 96 or whatever just makes the tourney that much more watered down with mediocre teams. The tourney should be for teams who showed they deserved it in regular season or who earned it in the conference tourneys. More teams, play in games, etc just makes the field more mediocre. I think 64 is perfect, enough slots to accomodate cinderellas from small conference schools without watering down the field with more middle of the road teams.
Such a great start to the day, Oklahoma actually won a big game, Northern Iowa fought back, and then.....well, San Diego St let's a win at New Mexico in OT slip out of their hands, Michigan St reopened the Big 10 and helped Illinois secure a spot in the big dance, sorry bubble teams, and oh yes, Arkansas won again
-The CEO
My apologies to all the teams I selected. Your season's looked so promising until you landed on my roster of teams. At that point, your hopes and dreams were crushed and any hopes of post-season success are over. Sorry Temple and St. Johns for adding you to my sorry line-up and ruining your season.
--SGII
Don't forget to apologize to the Tar Heels. And Tulsa. They both looked promising. :-)
.....and Louisville, and Missouri, and Ole Miss, and Creighton (OK, they sucked before I picked them.)....
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