The NCAA Men’s Basketball Thread (And the Feds)

How strange that both were Virginia losing to Chaminade.

I was doing great in my ESPN bracket. After the 1st round, I had only missed 1 pick and that one was by 2 points. After the 2nd round? Damn! Kiss my bracket goodbye.

Rafferty is awful. He ruins the whole broadcast. Shut up!!

He has just become a caricature of himself at this point. It seems like he has his list of oddly-voiced goofy phrases that he tries to shoehorn into the commentary.

As annoying as he is, the final four has been almost unwatchable for me due to the worst game horn I have ever heard. Though it has the benefit of making me think more kindly upon the vuvuzela.

I have watched exactly zero minutes of basketball in this year’s tournament before today, but I ran across an article about how to watch the championship game that mentioned the NCAA March Madness app. Apparently you get 3 free hours of streaming before they require a cable login. So, I’m using that on tonight’s game, because why not? The stream is decent quality thus far, though there have been several points where it repeated a couple of seconds, presumably sync issues.

As Goodgulf stepped onto the bridge the passage echoed with an ominous dribble, dribble, and a great crowd of narcs burst forth. In their midst was a towering dark shadow too terrible to describe. In its hand it held a huge black globe and on its chest was written in cruel runes, “Villanova.” “Aiyee,” shouted Legolam. “A ballhog!”

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Villanova’s average margin of victory in the tournament was 17.7 points. Total dominance.

They were really good.

Jay Wright isn’t even among the top fifteen highest paid coaches in college basketball. I know he loves it where he is, but at some point I think he’s got to tell them either pay me or I need to find a new challenge. I’m not sure Villanova is willing to pay him. They’re probably happy with two Championships.

I think he’ll stay until the Sixers need a head coach again and then he’s going to the NBA. The only real question is how solid Brett Brown’s future is in Philadelphia. A lot hinges on how the Sixers look in the playoffs IMO.

Interesting (and refreshing) that there was not a single one-and-done player at the final four.

I did not know this. Is this a real thing? If so…awesome.

-xtien

There was no “name” one and doner. That doesn’t mean that some freshman from one of the teams is not going to put his name into the NBA draft in the next few weeks. One of the sad things about one and done is how many do that who never stand a real chance of getting drafted. The draft is only two freaking rounds.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/sports/2018/11/22/some-people-dont-call-it-basketball-inside-strangest-college-game-year/?utm_term=.da2e33d42388

a Division III contest Tuesday between two teams in central Iowa in which the losing team attempted 89 three-pointers, equaling an NCAA Division III record, and the winning team attempted none.

I’d hate to have paid $1,000+ for this Duke/North Carolina match. Zion goes out of the game in the first minute with a knee injury, and Duke has fallen apart. They’re down 22(!!!) points in the second half.

Oof. As much as I hated the idea at the time, perhaps Scottie Pippen was right.

-xtien

Obama and Ken Griffey Jr are at this game.

Duke keeps chucking up 3s and missing. It’s their home court, too.

I was happy with the outcome (UNC fan.) That being said, what’s the deal with the shoe blowout? Even though I’m not a fan of Duke, I’m glad Zion only appears to have suffered a knee sprain due to it. But damn if that shoe wasn’t destroyed. Not a good situation for Nike.

“It’s already all over the world while we’re still watching the game he got hurt in,” said veteran shoe executive Sonny Vaccaro, whose observation came during halftime. “They’re going to show it until we die.”

All the shoe companies can go to hell. While some gloat about how Louisville and Kansas are in the crosshairs because of shady practices by Adidas, that’s only because the Adidas guys were careless. Williamson is at Duke because he got the best deal from Nike, and Nike wanted its biggest star at its premier school.

Shoe companies, or at least major apparel companies that make shoes, have owned college basketball for decades and now own parts of college football. The sport would be better off without them.