I was right, and I was wrong

[Codaxx]

^^^^^^^


and what 3 teams are there from the Big12?????

my bad, it is 2. My pt wasnt so much that 3 was the determining number, just that basing everything on the tourney can lead you to some bad answers.

 

[Blaise Winter]

my bad, it is 2. My pt wasnt so much that 3 was the determining number, just that basing everything on the tourney can lead you to some bad answers.

2 teams left out of 7 (the most of any conference) is pretty damn bad, I'm not sure why anyone would argue with that.

 

[Codaxx]

2 teams left out of 7 (the most of any conference) is pretty damn bad, I'm not sure why anyone would argue with that.

-
Pretty simple. 2 bad losses. Baylor with a nice win. Kansas without Embiid was hardly the Kansas that played in the Big 12, many had them losing in the second round based on new information that the committee does not use when factoring seeds. ISU is in the sweet 16 and lost one of their best players. Does that change the fact that 70% of the conference was invited?
We can use the SEC also. 3 teams invited and all made it, but anyone that has watched the conference knows that UK is nothing like the team that played most of the season in conference. Does that somehow change the fact that 11 teams, almost 80%, were not invited?
Are we supposed to get excited by teams like UCLA and MSU beating 2 double digit seeds? Tourney is about match-ups and hitting your stride. Those things are not considered when selections and seedings are made. Wichita State is a giant failure for losing to an 8 seed. Virginia is a succuss for beating Memphis. Meanwhile Pomeroy has UK at 11 and Memphis at 39. People love to extrapolate limited data on a few games and apply them to the prior 300+ a conference has made.

 

[mrwallace2ku]

I'm right that I'm usually wrong and I'm wrong in saying I'm usually always right.

 

[CatsTopPac]

Right:

KU was never a legit FF threat.
WSU was never a legit FF threat.
SU was never a legit FF threat.

Wrong:

Duke was a legit FF threat.

 

[BUD]

Right- Michigan would win the Big 10

Wrong- Duke and Kansas would make the Final 4

 

[dcZONAfan]

Right:

KU was never a legit FF threat.
WSU was never a legit FF threat.
SU was never a legit FF threat.

Wrong:

Duke was a legit FF threat.

Disagree. KU was a final four THREAT if Embiid was healthy. WSU was a final four THREAT, unless you think Kentucky isn't as they are sitting two games away from just that.

Making the final four isn't the only factor in being a threat.

I'll give you the Duke and Cuse ones, at the end of the year it was obvious Cuse just didn't have it and I never bought into Duke as a legit contender because they were all offense just like Creighton

 

[CatsTopPac]

Disagree. KU was a final four THREAT if Embiid was healthy. WSU was a final four THREAT, unless you think Kentucky isn't as they are sitting two games away from just that.

Making the final four isn't the only factor in being a threat.

I'll give you the Duke and Cuse ones, at the end of the year it was obvious Cuse just didn't have it and I never bought into Duke as a legit contender because they were all offense just like Creighton

Eh, I see your points. Again, I just think that WSU played a good game against UK who also played a good game. But I don't think they would have also been able to show up like that against 'Ville and then again against the winner of the UM/Tenn game (maybe Tenn). Bottom line for me is that a #1 seed shouldn't lose to an 8 seed.

Same goes with KU. A #2 seed should never lose to a #10 seed, even without Embiid. Even with Embiid, I don't see them beating the winner of the UF/UCLA game. Again, playing so many good teams doesn't mean as much when they lose to almost half of them. It's just too difficult to say that a team that loses in the first weekend for any reason is capable of making it to the FF. It's all just speculation at this point, but there was no way I could see either of those teams in Dallas. They were right on par with Cuse to me.

 

[azchamps]

I made a mistake once.....I thought I was wrong.

GO CATS! BEAR DOWN!

 

[Shanemansj13]

Where's Kramer??!

Pretty sure if he made a thread like this it would be titled, "I was wrong...about everything"

 

[TrollyMcTroller]

Where's Kramer??!

Pretty sure if he made a thread like this it would be titled, "I was wrong...about everything"

You know what irks me about being wrong...

 

[TrollyMcTroller]

Same goes with KU. A #2 seed should never lose to a #10 seed, even without Embiid.

I think that's taking it a little far. I might buy that if you said a #2 seed should never lose to a auto-bid team, but with the amount of parity these days, if a team makes it as an at large team, then they can't be taken for granted. After losing a key player, (a guy who's name was mentioned as PotY on more than one occasion) a loss to another at-large team isn't a huge surprise.

 

[CatsTopPac]

I think that's taking it a little far. I might buy that if you said a #2 seed should never lose to a auto-bid team, but with the amount of parity these days, if a team makes it as an at large team, then they can't be taken for granted. After losing a key player, (a guy who's name was mentioned as PotY on more than one occasion) a loss to another at-large team isn't a huge surprise.

Yeah, I don't know. I just haven't been impressed with KU this year. I'm also on the fence with Embiid being heralded as much as he has. He's still a freshman, and 11.8 and 8.1 isn't exactly a world-beater to me. But ultimately, he hasn't played in a game since the first of the month, so KU should be further along in their ability to play without him.

Even if we're talking about saying the KU shouldn't lose to at-large bids, Stanford was pretty damn close to a play-in game, themselves. I mean really, they were probably a loss away from being a play-in team, or off the board. They really didn't beat anyone all year, except for UConn back in Dec (by 2), and at home against UCLA. Other than that, they were pretty ho hum this year.

I just look at KU, and see some of their wins/losses, and other than ISU, Baylor, and Texas, they really didn't beat anyone who even showed in the tourney. And other than Duke and ISU, they really didn't beat a team that played with any consistent quality. Again, I think that playing a tough schedule matters much more if you actually beat an overwhelming amount of really solid teams. KU just didn't so that this season. They beat up on a bunch of fringe top 25 teams, and lost to them/anyone better than that (with the exception of Duke). Again, I'm not completely shitting on them, I just never saw them as a viable FF team. They would have been close with Embiid, but they just never looked like they could win consistently against EE quality teams. That's why back in early Feb, I posted this http://www.sportshoopla.com/forums/...general-discussion/138670-ku-loses-again.html . And given the fact that they played Stanford in St Louis, and had the crowd by a large majority, I'm just totally against any feeling that KU could have made it past this coming weekend.

 

[TrollyMcTroller]

I get what you're saying about KU and while I don't necessarily agree, I don't disagree strongly enough to really argue about it. My issue is with your statement that a #2 should never lose to a #10.

I don't think it holds up to scrutiny. As mentioned above, with parity being what it is, suggesting it should never happen is silly. Better teams lose all the time. That's why nobody has run the table in almost 40 years. Sometimes the better team loses. Throw in an injured PotY candidate and I don't think it was a huge shock that KU lost.

The other thing to keep in mind is the nature of seeding. Seeding is based on what you have already done. It isn't supposed to be speculative, forward looking or otherwise predictive. Too many people point to articles that cite odds makers complaining that the seeding is wrong. Thte seeding is fine, it just isn't based on the same metrics you're trying to evaluate it with. By suggesting one seed should always beat another, you're effectively doing the same thing. In reality it's very possible that two very evenly matched teams get two very different seeds based on their very different bodies of work. Knowing that it is certainly possible that a 10 seed could be better than a given 2 seed. I'm not saying that's the case with KU, but it is a distinct possibility. Tennessee is an example of a pretty good team (especially as rated by KenPom and such) that had a pretty bad resume and barely made the tournament. They ended up beating Iowa in the play in game (a team that a lot of folks around here thought were world beaters for the better part of the season) then beat a solid UMass squad. I don't think they won because they were lucky. (the Mercer draw was lucky, but not the outcome) They won because they were the better team. I think they'll give UM a tough game too. Point being the difference between a 10 or 11 and a 2 or a 3 isn't as big as you claim it is.

 

[CatsTopPac]

Fair enough. I'm pretty big against speaking in any sort of absolutes, so your point is completely valid. Generally speaking, the parity of a 10 beating a two and it not being a big deal at all is what we all love about CBB. But that doesn't mean that a team that loses to a #10 seed in the first weekend should still be considered a FF threat. KU specifically, I was more just stating that a FF team losing to a team that is not far from a play-in game doesn't bode well for the argument that they would win the 2 following games against supposedly better teams to make it to the FF. Again, the actual path aside and the fact that the distance between a 2 and 10 seed are not insurmountable differences aside, I was more just arguing that I never saw KU as a FF quality team. I mean, just to further my point; there is a reason that only 3 teams with double digit seedings have made the FF (since 1979). It's because a #2 seed and a #10 seed are supposed to be pretty far apart. A #2 seed is supposed to beat a #10 seed. It's never absolute, which is your point, but to argue that the difference between a #2-3 seed and a #10-11 seed is not as far apart as I make it seem, eh, agree to disagree. If a team is a #2 seed, then they are supposed to be a top 10 team. A top ten team is supposed to battle for the FF, not lose against a team that struggled to make the tourney. If a #2 seed is going to lose to a #10 seed, then that 10 seed is going to need to be beating other top 4 seeds for me to believe that the #10 seed is a solid team (not just that the #2 seed just failed to show up).

Because just to use the reverse of your argument, if there is not that much of a difference between #2-3 seeds and #10-11 seeds, then there should be more than 3 double digit seeds having made the FF, as opposed to the 44 #2-3 seeds who have made the FF (again, since 1979). Again, nothing is absolute, but if that #2 seed is a FF contender in the eyes of many, then they should beat a team that should have been out in the first round. Shit happens and Cinderellas abound, but the only way I will believe that KU didn't shit the bed is if Stanford goes around beating other FF contenders (top 4 seeds, generally speaking). And I just can't count Iowa, a team that lost 6 of their last 7, as a team worth mentioning. Clearly they are not playing the same basketball that they did Nov-Jan.