Well, my university - Maryland - seems to have been given a bit of favor. I see a potential loss to Texas. Pitt!!! You believe the travel they have, AND that they did not get a #1?
My hometown team Syracuse is coming out here to Boston for the first round...looks like a tough road, the east is stacked. Big East had two bubble teams NOT make it in...BC and Seton Hall.
Not happy with lack of BC, or BU, for that matter. And I'm calling a BYU-Texas upset, and Maryland taking the region. Call me an idealist. I'll post my brackets somewhere. Prof
boston college was robbed. auburn? alabama? ugghhh...not deserving... put seton hall and boston college in place of them. and dayton out to the state of washington to play? they got screwed... this pod crap needs to be tossed out the window.
You can always head over to this thread for information about an ESPN group soccernutter started. https://www.bigsoccer.com/forum/showthread.php?threadid=37799&perpage=15&pagenumber=1 (By the way...small world, I work in Framingham)
I bet that 7 out of 10 people will pick Weber State to beat Wisconsin. Pittsburgh got a 2 seed. That is what they should have gotten. No way at a number one. Look at their non-conference schedule. Auburn should not have gotten in cause of their schedule. Weak. Also have a beef with Florida being a 2 seed in the South. Should have swapped seeds with Duke (and I hate Duke). Early predictions on first round upsets: Tulsa over Dayton, UW-Milwaukee over Notre Dame, San Diego over Stanford, UNC Wilmington over Maryland, Troy St over Xavier, Manhattan over Syracuse. Not going to say that they will all happen, but don't be surprised.
maybe...dayton is a tough, tough team. with david west <and romain sato> i think xavier is the darkhorse team in this tournament. no way they go out against troy state and i can honestly see them getting all the way to the elite eight to play texas.
I can say that Syracuse has a very good chance to get to the Sweet 16 (OK st doesn't have close to the offense they need to beat cuse and they don't have the post defenders to stop Melo or Warrick, all-though Penn might just run a clinic through Cuse's Sub-Par defense.) Where they get to take on the team that stole their #2 seed, Wake Forest(I have no idea how this happened, Cuse won the Regular Season Championship in the stronger conference, got knocked out by a better team in the conference tournamenet than Wake Forest did, has a MUCH better profile, yet loses out to the ACC team). In Albany
I threw out Troy State based on past tourneys. There is always a 3/4 seed that is darkhorse to make it to the Elite 8/Final 4 and they get upset in the first round. Dayton is a good team, I just don't know how they will handle it out in Spokane against a veteran Tulsa team that underachieved this year.
continuing... my first (non-cuse) thoughts on the brackets.... Oregon is gonna give a game to Kentucky (before losing) Mizzou will beat Marquette Pitt - Kentucky will be an elite 8 and the winner will score 40 ND will lose to Wisc-GB Creighton might be a better team than Duke Texas got screwed and might not make it past LSU If they do get past LSU they'll get beat by UConn MD - Xavier...if MD can play good D they win Florida sucks and will lose their 2nd round game (be it MSU or the Buffs) Boomer Soonerand Wake got scrwed by getting put in the East with a #3 seeded Syracuse. The Regionals are in Albany and alreadt sold out. It'll be painted Orange My Final 4 Kentucky, Arizona, UConn, Oklahoma
1. Arizona 25 2 .5942 20 .6652 2. Kentucky 26 3 .5838 26 .6576 3. Texas 22 5 .6265 3 .6569 4. Oklahoma 21 6 .6203 6 .6427 5. Kansas 22 6 .6122 7 .6417 6. Georgia 19 8 .6478 1 .6406 7. Marquette 23 4 .5800 31 .6397 8. Wake Forest 23 4 .5786 33 .6380 9. Syracuse 23 4 .5769 35 .6362 10. Notre Dame 22 8 .6208 5 .6298 Forest is just that much better. This the bottom 2 and high 3 seed, IMO. Either way, Cuse almost has home court advantage all the way up to the final 4.
Awesome. It won't be nearly as hard on us when we lose in the first round of the tournament this year considering we have no business being in there in the first place.
my preliminary final four. pittsburgh <if knight is healthy>, illinois, texas, oklahoma. this will no doubt change by the time the games begin on thursday but right now i gotta say that pitt can beat kentucky <that is going to be a hell of a battle> and illinois is playing so well right now and everyone is healthy. texas and oklahoma are two other great teams that have that one player <ford and price> that can win a game for ya.
The upset that nobody will predict, but I think is as likely as any other upset, is Central Michigan over Creighton. I saw several of Central's conference tourney games, and this is a very good basketball team that is playing with a purpose. Their 7 ft center is dominant. Creighton struggled to beat some very suspect teams down the stretch. You heard it here first. The Tulsa/Dayton and San Diego/Stanford games will be very interesting. Both will be in Spokane, from which Gonzaga hails. The games have been sold out for awhile, meaning locals bought the tickets. Gonzaga beat Tulsa and USD earlier this year. So, the locals will support Tulsa and USD. This is a long way of saying USD and Tulsa will have "homecourt" advantage, and we all know how important that is...
I usually get the champ right but have no idea this year. BC got screwed / screwed themselves. Too many losses to the likes of Northeastern early on likely did them in. Colorado State winning last night didn't help. Cuse is playing in Boston BTW. I'll have to read up a bit and study the bracket before I can make preds. for the weekend. I'll say this though: as a New England native, I'm thrilled to see Vermont get in there for the first time. Coach Tom Brennan is an institution up there; in addition to coach he has the highest rated AM radio show in the region.
Idealist? BYU? Maryland? Why don't we just make it more specific and call you Spawn of Satan Worshipper?
Damn close to my Final 4 Kentucky Arizona Xavier Wake Forest I just have a feeling about Xavier....which probably means they are out after two games