Which teams do you think reach the final four

[OSR stands with Israel]

Here are  who I think

Kansas
Oregon
Kentucky
Michigan St

[DINGO Joe]

Haven't looked at the brackets yet.  I like Kansas.  I love watching WV play but I'll have to look at the bracket to see if they can get there.  Conversely, the best news of the day is that LSU won't play anywhere (they won't take an NIT bid).  In my forty sentient years of watching basketball, trying to watch them play as a team was the worst experience of my basketball life.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

Kentucky will lose to Stony Brook. Kansas would've been my pick if they weren't facing the one of the hottest teams in the country in the Sweet 16. Cal is very, very dangerous.

Villanova got ebbed of course on the location front (as did Xavier) due to NCAA corruption. We would have gotten there if we were playing in Philadelphia. Oh well. Our fans seem to be overlooking a very good Miami team with Jaquan Newton looking for revenge. I hope we can take them, but I still don't think we get to the Final Four.

If this isn't our year as I suspect all of a sudden (how funny, a single non-foul call ruins a whole season's effort!), I guess I'll be rooting for Matty McQ and the Spartans.
I consider Oklahoma to have one of the easiest paths in recent history despite their cold streak. There is just too much talent there, and I suspect they won't waste it. A&M is highly overrated. Oregon is the worst #1 seed in the last 10 years. Duke is thin. They are familiar with Texas and Baylor.

To be honest, I don't know yet outside of Oklahoma though. Am I obligated to pick Villanova? I suppose. The weakness of the 5-8 seeds speel a bit of doom in that we will certainly have to beat good teams far away. I do like all four particularly Berkeley though.

West Virginia has the 'safest' route in the East. And by that I mean Providence and Wisconsin scare me more than Notre Dame, and Indiana/Kentucky need to focus on the first round before getting too excited. Dunno what I'll do with that region in the slightest.

In the Midwest, Purdue could be an interesting candidate -- they could be knocked out in the first round by a talent Little Rock team of course, but KenPom seems to find them highly underrated and they had a strong performance this past week. Again, absolutely no clue, but MSU is deep. They may have a tough match in the regional semi's and finals, but I don't doubt the home Chicago crowd will pull them through so long as Virginia can take care of Purdue (and Butler).

In order of confidence:
1. Oklahoma
2. Michigan State
3. Villanova
4. West Virginia?

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

What I find a great deal more fun however is identifying potential upsets if you'd allow me to hijack:

1. VCU over Oregon State - 80% chance. Love OSU. Love Gary Payton. They are extraordinarily overseeded. Not that VCU is that good this year, but the Beavers have no business being this high. True neutral court. Oregon State is a bit thin at the moment, and the VCU defense remains strong post-Shaka Smart. They can wear them down.

2. Temple over Iowa - 70% chance. Obi Enechionyia has really come into his own during conference play. Game is in Brooklyn, tons of Temple people (plus Villanova fans looking for a second beatdown) will be in attendance to make noise for the Owls. Both teams play to the level of their opponent, and Iowa's just in absolute tailspin. I think the Owls can handle Uthoff with ease the way they are playing.

3. Wichita State over Arizona - 50% chance. Probably sounds like anti-Pac-12 bias at this point, but isn't there just something about Wichita at tournament time? This team frankly doesn't lose very much at full strength and retains some of the strongest guard play in the country, which says quite a lot with the depth at PG (plus Hield and Valentine at SG) this season.

4. Stony Brook over Kentucky - 42.5% chance. A senior-laden team with a lot of pride in what they've finally accomplished. Yep! They've got nothing to lose.

5. Yale over Baylor - 40% chance. For all the negative stuff Yale has gone through, their first birth in 60 years results in a home game!! Goodness, me! Tough to overcome, but always bet on the Ivies.

6. Iona over Iowa State - 35% chance - A severe indictment of Iowa State's inability to win away from home at any point in recent history including last year's tournament. I'm sure Niang and co. are hungry but so is Iona after hunting down a Monmouth team that probably couldn't pull off a win in March quite like the Gaels. Iona has program pride and history rather than a gimmick. Can they finally win a game?

7. SD State over Maryland - 35% chance. More an indictment of a weak Maryland having to play all the way in Spokane than a praise of the Jackrabbits. I would actually like Hawaii's odd substantially better.

8. Northern Iowa over Texas - 25% chance because with UNI you have absolutely no clue what you are going to get.

9. Little Rock over Purdue - 20% chance. UALR just doesn't know how to lose very well, but I think I can put faith in Purdue.

10. UNC-Wilmington over Duke - 12.5% chance. The Colonial is quite legit, but it's still Duke, and a very star-studded Duke team at that.

11. Green Bay over Texas A&M - 10% chance. They're lucky it's in OKC because there is little I trust the Aggies to do.

Hawaii/Fresno/SFA wouldn't terribly shock me, but they're in the single digits likely. I like their opponents too much. SFA reminds me of the Florida/NW St. matchup from 2012 even down to style.


I'll probably go through with the top 5 in my bracket, but if I were feeling gutsy, I'd consider the next 2.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Kentucky will lose to Stony Brook. Kansas would've been my pick if they weren't facing the one of the hottest teams in the country in the Sweet 16. Cal is very, very dangerous.

Villanova got ebbed of course on the location front (as did Xavier) due to NCAA corruption. We would have gotten there if we were playing in Philadelphia. Oh well. Our fans seem to be overlooking a very good Miami team with Jaquan Newton looking for revenge. I hope we can take them, but I still don't think we get to the Final Four.

If this isn't our year as I suspect all of a sudden (how funny, a single non-foul call ruins a whole season's effort!), I guess I'll be rooting for Matty McQ and the Spartans.
I consider Oklahoma to have one of the easiest paths in recent history despite their cold streak. There is just too much talent there, and I suspect they won't waste it. A&M is highly overrated. Oregon is the worst #1 seed in the last 10 years. Duke is thin. They are familiar with Texas and Baylor.

To be honest, I don't know yet outside of Oklahoma though. Am I obligated to pick Villanova? I suppose. The weakness of the 5-8 seeds speel a bit of doom in that we will certainly have to beat good teams far away. I do like all four particularly Berkeley though.

West Virginia has the 'safest' route in the East. And by that I mean Providence and Wisconsin scare me more than Notre Dame, and Indiana/Kentucky need to focus on the first round before getting too excited. Dunno what I'll do with that region in the slightest.

In the Midwest, Purdue could be an interesting candidate -- they could be knocked out in the first round by a talent Little Rock team of course, but KenPom seems to find them highly underrated and they had a strong performance this past week. Again, absolutely no clue, but MSU is deep. They may have a tough match in the regional semi's and finals, but I don't doubt the home Chicago crowd will pull them through so long as Virginia can take care of Purdue (and Butler).

In order of confidence:
1. Oklahoma
2. Michigan State
3. Villanova
4. West Virginia?

How they beat a really good Arizona team multiple times and dominated a really good Utah team and have played amazing all year.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

KenPom ranks them at #9, which is by far the lowest a #1 seed has been since Washington was gifted the west for no reason in particular back in 05 or so. There was also one bone thrown to Kansas in the meantime. That Kansas team was still significantly higher rated, and they still managed to get bumped out early iirc.

Arizona is not particularly good. Utah is up-and-down because they are star-centric with Poeltl. Oregon seems to cause serious match-up issues for them from what I've seen to get thumped so bad thrice. Match-ups matter quite a lot, especially in college. The team also lost to Stanford. And UNLV on a neutral court. I watched both of those and the recent Cal game in which they've looked atrocious away from home. The Pac-12 tournament's a good show, but what exactly did they accomplish? You can't take away that much from a conference tournament on back-to-back-to-back days of games.

[Pragmatic Conservative]

Kansas
Oklahoma
West Virgina
Virginia

Oklahoma over Virginia in the Title Game

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

In order of confidence:
1. Oklahoma
2. Michigan State
3. Villanova California
4. West Virginia?

LOL! This is why I refuse to bracket generally. You can't pick more than a game in advance.

At least I still got Nova...for 2 more days...

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

Next Round Odds are up



In my opinion, the 8/9 seeds aren't given good enough odds. I have more faith in Syracuse beating MTSU than any of the 1 seeds who are facing actually good teams despite being woefully inconsitent themselves this year. We shall see.

I also don't see why Hawaii can't beat Maryland.

[muon2]

Each year I track the number of upsets based on seeds as I watch the games. It's something I've done for 20 years or so. Usually there are 7 or 8 upsets in the first round, and the deviations usually comes from how many 9 seeds win over 8 seeds. Last year there were only 5 upsets in the first round, but this year there were 13! For the first time a 13th, 14th and 15th seed all won on the same day. In games involving seeds 5-12 the lower seed won 62.5% of the games. It's like the committee was basing the seeds far too much on narrow factors (late season, good wins) and missed the big picture for some of these teams.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

Each year I track the number of upsets based on seeds as I watch the games. It's something I've done for 20 years or so. Usually there are 7 or 8 upsets in the first round, and the deviations usually comes from how many 9 seeds win over 8 seeds. Last year there were only 5 upsets in the first round, but this year there were 13! For the first time a 13th, 14th and 15th seed all won on the same day. In games involving seeds 5-12 the lower seed won 62.5% of the games. It's like the committee was basing the seeds far too much on narrow factors (late season, good wins) and missed the big picture for some of these teams.

We briefly touched on this at Aad. First problem is that I believe every 9 seed was favored (need to double check Butler). With 2 of those being 1 possession games and uconn requiring a massive comeback, it's hard to judge the merits of those teams being favored, but 3 did win. VCU was definitely favored as the Beavers deserved nowhere near a 7 seed. Selection criteria justifies Wichita as a 10 or 11, but many rankings have them as a top 10 team, especially when injuries are considered. They are even favored over Miami in round 2 and rightfully so.That's 5 of the upsets right there that weren't spread upsets. That's where they messed up.

The 6th is explainable by Cal being down two starters. With only 5 core guys, they didn't even have a prayer, especially when Brown had to sit down with fouls. Yale had an effective home game which is obviously critical at this level. Vegas doesn't take this into account and neither does 538, but they really should.

The 6 crazier upsets were MTSU, Syracuse, Gonzaga, Northern Iowa, Little Rock, and SFA. Of those: MTSU was the best 15 obviously yet not clearly better than any 14. Syracuse shouldn't have made the tournament. Gonzaga was justly seeded as they wouldn't have deserved it with a loss to St. Mary's. UNI I actually found over seeded at 11. The other two were probably a seed line too low. Clearly talented, but I can't justify much higher.


Thanks for tracking that muon. For the record, the official NCAA definition if upset requires a 5 seed line difference. I suppose that's so they can save themselves from harsh criticism in the 7-10 seeds.

[Bunwahaha [still dunno why, but well, so be it]]

Qatar Saint-Germain
Barcelona
Bayern
Real Madrid

Dunno what happened to the football thread...

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Now, i want Zaggs, Hoosiers, Jayhawks, and TX Aggies. JAYHAWKS V Hoosiers Final

[muon2]

After the crazy first round, the second round returns to normal. With one game left to finish there are only 3 seeded upsets out of 15 games, and only two teams with double digit seeds are in the Sweet 16. That's pretty much normal.

edit: Oregon's win makes it 3 upsets out of 16 for 19%.  The first round upset rate was 41%, and combined the upset rate is 33%. It looks like an example of regression to the mean.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

And then there were 16.



Sadly Northern Iowa, VCU and St. Joe's couldn't give their states 2 a piece and make this even more representative of the area of fandom. (And UConn too, but they weren't close like those other 3!)

And we appear to have a clear top 5, and then everyone else:

[Grumpier Than Uncle Joe]

I'm thinking the U might make it.

[Stm85]

I picke Kansas, Oklahoma, Kentucky, and Virginia originally. UNC would take the last spot if I was picking now. I'm also sticking with my original pick of Virginia over Kansas in the championship game.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

I know NC or Hoosiers are in same bracket, either of them will be fine champs.

[Starbucks Union Thug HokeyPuck]

New York Rangers
Tampa Bay Lightning
Anaheim Ducks
Chicago Blackhawks

[muon2]

The third round has replaced the upset craziness of the first round with a perfect round for the higher seeds. For three rounds the upset rate is now 16/56 = 29%.

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

Oklahoma v UNC final looks inevitable now.

[Sprouts Farmers Market ✘]

Oklahoma v UNC final looks inevitable now.

Villanova is favored in the next round and is #1 KenPom finally...
I'm not saying it's guaranteed, but they will be favored. And let's wait for UNC to advance, shall we?

[muon2]

Back to upsets in the fourth round with 3 of 4 number 1 seeds losing. The upset rate rises to 19/60 = 32%.

[/]

I think the final four will be Oklahoma, Villanova, UNC, and Syracuse but idk

[The Other Castro]

Sigh, I had Indiana beating Kansas in the finals. I should stick to politics.