Final Four: Duke/MSU [open thread]
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If those two are playing I'm not watching.
At least if Kentucky wins, when Calipari finally gets busted by the NCAA (I know, a joke), Kentucky will have to pretend their tournament wins never happened.
Agreed.
Tom Izzo is Coack K's little brother. 9-1.
hHow many players from State had injuries?
It is a very funny feeling to be rooting for Duke and Kentucky.
All of them.
And the refs screwed them.
I don't get the Duke hate - maybe it's because I've only been watching college basketball seriously for 5 or so years. I'm hoping Wisconsin wins #1, then Duke after that. Absolutely not Kentucky
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And business savvy Art Van counters with a 30% off sale!
I'm hoping Wisconsin can pull it off tonight since I have them winning it all in my bracket, but either way, whoever wins now doesn't bother me.
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I don't think MSU is 20 points worse than Duke, but...yeah, one of the 4 teams in the FF wasn't like the others, and I think we see which one that is.
With the losses MSU and Wiscy will undergo this offseason, there is a very real chance UM is a top-2/3 team in this conference next year. Wiscy will be pesky and MSU should be competitive, but both are losing huge parts of their teams and I'm not seeing where they'll replace those guys with returning players, especially MSU. Even if Valentine comes back, this was a middling team for most of the year until they got on a bit of a hot streak to end the season, and that's with 2 senior starters.
OSU and Iowa should be interesting, and IU has some talent, but while this year sucks it feels like UM should be back in the upper portion of the conference next year and competing for a top-4 seed in the tourney.
Trice and Dawson were obviously big pieces, but I think MSU is probably still going to be a very good team next year, and probably B1G favorites to most people.
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Eron Harris can drive to the hole - something this MSU team lacked.
Trice played out of his mind to end the year but was not that good all year. Harris should be better during the year - not sure if you can ask him to be as good as Trrice was in the tourney. Remember, Beilein wanted Harris.
Nairn returns as a SO PG - he cant shoot but he is a good floor general, you take away SR Trice and replace with JR Harris, Costello and Schilling return a year older at the 5, and Valentine is a SR SF. The big question is how ready Deyonta Davis is at the 4. His offense is raw but he is very long and a good shot blocker and supposedly good defender. How quickly he adapts at the 4 to replace Dawson is their key. They also get some sharpshooters like McQuad who was another Beilein target plus Bess and Clark will be better as sophomores then freshman. Bess barely played but was supposedly going to be their starting 2 to begin the year. And forbes is 1 dimensional but a good shooter.
They will have another good team. Good depth. That said their team a year ago had way more talent than this one and failed earlier in the tourney. So the tourney is a bit of luck but they should be at min sweet 16 next year or it would be a failure.
Right now assuming Russell goes to the NBA I have Maryland and MSU as probably the 2 favorites for the conference and then UM, Purdue as the next 2 real contendors. OSU will still have a lot of talent and I think Iowa returns a ton of guys... Illinois really disappointed me this year but I still thik they can be good next year. Not sure on Indiana - is Yogi a SR next year or did he graduate? Seems like he has been around forever...friggin UM killer.
I agree with this for the most part. Maryland getting Diamond Stone and keeping Trimble is big. If they can replace Wells for the most part, they'll be very good.
Yogi will be a senior next year, so he'll be back unless he decides to go pro, and from the mocks I've looked at he's either a 2nd rounder or undrafted, so he'll probably stay. And Indiana just got a top 25 recruit today. Fans are saying for Crean to keep his job he'll need to make it past the Sweet 16. If that actually happens is another thing, but Indiana will have a good team next year.
On a semi-related note, nbadraft.net has Levert has a late first round pick in the 2016 draft, not this year's, so they're expecting him to come back. They also have Irvin as an early second and Jalyn Brown as the 2nd overall pick so if Levert came back and we got Brown, we would be in for a big year.
Maryland feels like a bit of a wild card. They have older talent leaving and new guys coming in, but it seems like they have a gap there that will hurt them.
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Trice could shoot but was inconsistent, and maybe Harris fills that void but he's also coming off a year layoff and wasn't missed by WVU.
I didn't say they'd be terrible, but put this team in last years conference and they are probably .500 or so. I'm just not sure they are poised to be a top 4 team in the conference.
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I just love the fact that all week, people were saying MSU was only there because of an easy region, and tonight, it was all validated. What a pathetic performance from a mediocre team.
I dated a few Spartans, and believe me, they will.
You don't marry a girl like that, though. Just keep her on speed dial.
EDIT: I earned that neg. Fair.
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to the live stream of the Cedar Village party news coverage?
I have to give credit to Sparty for taking advantage of their weak regional to get to the Final Four. Wisconsin showed their superiority to MSU during regular season, Duke crushed them tonight, and if Kentucky would have gotten a chance at them, I think it would have gotten very ugly. So, yeah, Izzo got another Final Four, but if they would have been in any other regional I am sure that there would have been no Final Four for them
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Now I can look at Facebook again!!
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1.U-M, 12-13
2.U-M, 13-14
3.MSU, 14-15
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"Spartans celebrate with class." If they did, you wouldn't have to say it.
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Trice of January was not a big loss. Trice in March was playing out of his mind. Check his box scores the past month. He was their best player the past 4 weeks. But again in January he was really bad at times. He really turned the corner lately. Here are his scoring totals since the game vs UM in mid Feb:
- 22, 18, 21, 16, 27, 21, 18, 20, 6, 15, 23, 24, 17, 16
He only played less than 33 minutes once in that time. Their season really turned when Trice turned the corner.
If they did not get Eron Harris to replace him I'd worry about where MSU would get scoring next year but you can pencil in Harrris for 14-16 a game.
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