Saturday Night MBB Open Thread

Submitted by Avant's Hands on

Some good games tonight (hopefully). Right now Zona and UCLA are locked at 68 with under a minute left. No one has scored in this one for a while and it's getting fast and loose.

Avant's Hands

March 15th, 2014 at 7:59 PM ^

Great ending coming up in the PAC 12 final. UCLA hit a tough three, which was followed by a Zona airball. Then UCLA missed a front end and Zona still couldn't hit a shot. UCLA about to close it out. Makes you appreciate how hard it is to survive conference tournaments.

Avant's Hands

March 15th, 2014 at 8:02 PM ^

If you are looking for other basketball games the MWC final is on CBS. Aztecs down 3 to the Lobos with under 4 left. We all know both teams tend to underperform in March, but it sure is fun to watch them play each other.

DK81

March 15th, 2014 at 8:06 PM ^

OT: I hate how announcers and sideline reporters call tourney titles "conference championships". UCLA is the PAC 12 Tourney champs not PAC 12 Champs.

Avant's Hands

March 15th, 2014 at 8:13 PM ^

Holy crap. SDSU down 5 gets a 3 and then a steal and a 3 point play to take the lead with a minute left. Then NMU gets a 3 point play at the other side. Great basketball.

Earl

March 15th, 2014 at 8:21 PM ^

Anyone watching the SDSU v New Mex game see the inbound play with about 1:45 left, where the New Mex player is inbounding the ball at the base line, and his teammate runs out of bounds along the base line and he passes the ball to the teammate while he is out of bounds and that player passes it back to the original inbounder who then passes it back to the other player as he heads in bounds? No call and not a word from the annoucers. Is that somehow legal ?

LSAClassOf2000

March 15th, 2014 at 8:25 PM ^

New Mexico threepeats in the MWC.

Both New Mexico and San Diego State had effective field goal pecentages under 50% and free throw rates near or above 40%. They sent each other to the line quite a bit in this game. Indeed, there are now 40 PFs as we close out this one. Both teams have more TOs than assists too. Overall, there was a lot about this one that was sort of ugly, especially the part where it was 34-34 as late as 11:57 in the 2nd half. 

Petr89

March 15th, 2014 at 8:44 PM ^

I make no claim to be a basketball guru, so forgive me if this is a stupid question: does Arizona's loss today affect our chances at a 1 seed or are they far enough ahead of us that it is irrelevant?

Thanks.

rockydude

March 15th, 2014 at 8:52 PM ^

I wondered that too. I looked up one of the bracketology gurus. He said that Arizona had the third #1 seed totally locked down and the loss wouldn't matter. But who the heck knows? Take that with a grain of salt. Obviously, I am also hoping that it frees up another #1, but I'm really not too sure . . . 

Muttley

March 15th, 2014 at 10:14 PM ^

and all of the talking heads have been saying that Fla (two losses), Witchita (undefeated), & Arizona are one-seed locks.

Of course, by that measure, Villanova has only four losses, and somehow we're supposed to be ahead of them.  In 2014, however, we've only lost three while Villanova has also lost three in this calendar year.

Kenpom has us at #11.  It seems to me that we're rather fortunate to be under consideration for the last one-seed.  (And as we saw last year, it's mildly helpful to be a one versus a two, three, or four, but playing well in March trumps seeding.

Mgoscottie

March 16th, 2014 at 11:06 AM ^

is against Tennessee.....

I don't get how they can get  a 1 seed either.  You should have to beat at least 1 good team to get one.  I also see this being a future of poor 1 seeds with the conference realignment putting a lot of conferences into situations with a couple of good teams and then nothing.  Hopefully people at least begin to consider not allowing great records over poor teams to be top seeds in the future.

93Grad

March 15th, 2014 at 9:17 PM ^

Lunardi just said that the selection committe might not want to change their brackets so late in the day.  I know this was debated in another thread, but I think it is still an open question of whether the BTT final outcome will come too late to influence the committee.

mGrowOld

March 15th, 2014 at 9:25 PM ^

I saw the debate and those that say it's too late and doesnt matter are wrong.  There have been a couple of instances where the selection committee had a winner goes here and loser goes there type scenerio but they've never ignored the outcome.  And if Michigan made the #1 line with 8 losses they would be the FIRST 8 loss team to ever get seeded that highly.

That is not going to happen.  We need one more win.  

Young John Beilein

March 15th, 2014 at 10:01 PM ^

ISU is pretty good.  We played a tough non-conference slate.  Would have been nice to win one of those marquee games.  If we don't get a 1 seed, that Arizona game we should have won will be the difference.  Also I know he's the mayor of Ames and whatnot, but I wouldn't mind seeing Fred Hoiberg as Michigan's next coach.  Probably no chance of that happening, just saying.

ak47

March 15th, 2014 at 10:16 PM ^

I want no part of louisville none, they look great, russ would get into the lane at will and they play great on ball defense.  If lunardi is right about them being a 3 in the midwest I want in the east at whatever seed, maybe the team I want to see the least right now.