T1B

With Noel out for Kentucky, I'd fade the SEC in the tournament outside of Florida. I'd consider the Pac-12 or the A-10 as a better conference in terms of tournament potential. The ACC is a pretty weak league after Duke and Miami and the Big East has a lot of good but not great teams. The Big XII is probably going to get a handful in...not impressed with them.

Gun to my head, you have to say the champ is coming out of the B1G this year...the best teams in that league have consistently been the best teams all year. No league will put in a better top 5 into the tournament than Indiana, Michigan, Michigan State, Wisconsin and Ohio State.

Syracuse isn't even close to blowing a bid. While they've lost their last two games, they'd still be looking at about a 4 seed if the tournament started today.

I don't know if the champ will come out of the Big Ten, but I'd bet the Big Ten gets three teams to the Elite Eight (IU, MSU and either Michigan, Ohio State or Wisky). When Duke gets Kelly back, they'll have a solid chance. Kansas usually rounds into form around this time. Miami's got NBA dudes who are all seniors. Florida, Arizona and Louisville are still very good. This thing is truly up for grabs, and might be one of those years where there are no 1 seeds in the Final Four.

Sudden Sam wrote:I forgot our underwhelming new friends at Mizzou. They may make the field.

You mean the underwhelming Mizzou team that buried 2nd place 'bammer by 16 at Mizzou Arena? That underwhelming Mizzou? Sorry, Sammy, but it would take a 3-game meltdown and a first round ejection in Nashville to keep us out of the Tournament. The tried-and-true SEC football strategy of scheduling FCS creampuffs doesn't play nice with folks that understand basketball -'specially when you lose to something called Mercer. At home. You have no friends at Mizzou.

Sudden Sam wrote:

Your Tigers are in, no doubt. Good team. Not great, like last year's losers to Norfolk State (see above: FCS creampuffs doesn't play nice with folks that understand basketball ), but a solid team.

Good point. I can't believe Frank Haith was that fucking stupid to schedule a tall, physical, mid-major his team clearly didn't match up well against in an arena where his team was sure to enjoy a substantial home-crowd advantage (never mind the 10,000 Beakers already in the stands to watch their team and who happen to hate Mizzou's guts), then turn around and lose by two in the first round of last year's Tournament. What a dumbass.

This is why SEC fans not wearing "Kentucky" on their shirts should lose their privileges in this forum...

BTW, Sammie, I heard a pundit say that Mizzou was an SEC team playing in the XII last year (finesse), and that they were a XII team competing in the SEC this year (physicality). Fairly apt, I thought. Last year's Tigers were, well, pretty. This year's Tigers? Er, mental, comes to mind...

At 11-5 and 2nd place in the SEC, grudgingly, I'll admit Bammer has built a resume good enough to get in, but they gotta win out. And should. Ole Miss is a hot mess, and you get the Dawgs at home to end the regular season. Do some damage in Nashville, and the Committee has a decision to make. What sucks, though, is you people need to learn to schedule in the non-con. Do that, and you're not even starting a thread liKe this, Mercer-be-damned. Roll-damn-Tide.

BTW, Coming Correct: The Tahd averaged almost 12,500 fans at Coleman last year, 500 more than Mizzou and good enough for number 27 in the country. Somebody down there cares...

Truman wrote:This year's Tigers?

Have lost 2 games they should've lost.

Otherwise, they are a pretty good team. Laurence Bowers is a helluva player, needs his jersey hung in the rafters someday.

I love the beating they put on Uncle Mike last night and the closest thing we've got to a rival in the SEC. arKansas will have to do... grrr...

Sudden Sam wrote:Yeah, suggesting Syracuse wouldn't be in was way over-reaching.

Syracuse could lose to Georgetown on Saturday and go one-and-done in the Big East tournament and still would make the field. No question about that.

The SEC does not need any small leagues' top teams to lose their tournaments.

The conferences you really have to watch this year are the MAC (Akron), Ohio Valley (Belmont) and WAC (Louisiana Tech). I think all of the teams in parentheses are in regardless of their conference tourneys, but an upset in the conference tourney will make that conference a two-bid league where ordinarily it would just get one. To a lesser extent keep an eye on C-USA (Memphis is in regardless), although I think that conference gets a second bid, as things stand now, in the form of Southern Miss. Also, there are two conferences which look like two-bid conferences to me at the moment, but could get a third bid if the right team gets hot down the stretch: Missouri Valley (I think Creighton and Wichita State are in, Indiana State also could get a bid) and the West Coast Conference (Gonzaga and St. Mary's are in, BYU could also get a bid).