April 7, 20215 yr 12 hours ago, TheDeuce said: Had this conversation with a buddy earlier... Nobody really considers Gonzaga a mid-major anymore, but they still play in a mid-major conference. Yep. And honestly, it is a great formula. They have the talent to win it all as evident by their ability to compete with teams early in the season. I give them props for scheduling tough OOC games and being highly competitive. Even if they drop a couple games early, the conference tilt allows them to rise in the polls and get up to a high seed and slotted to play in the West bracket, which traditionally is the easiest of the brackets. A break here and there and you can find yourself in the Final Four with the unpredictability of the tournament. Before Baylor the highest seed they played was #5 seed Creighton, a fringe top 25 team. (Another classic example of why I fundamentally dislike the NCAA tournament.)
April 7, 20215 yr 43 minutes ago, bugatti said: Yep. And honestly, it is a great formula. They have the talent to win it all as evident by their ability to compete with teams early in the season. I give them props for scheduling tough OOC games and being highly competitive. Even if they drop a couple games early, the conference tilt allows them to rise in the polls and get up to a high seed and slotted to play in the West bracket, which traditionally is the easiest of the brackets. A break here and there and you can find yourself in the Final Four with the unpredictability of the tournament. Before Baylor the highest seed they played was #5 seed Creighton, a fringe top 25 team. (Another classic example of why I fundamentally dislike the NCAA tournament.) Great post. I wish they would just quite with regional scheduling for the tournament.
April 7, 20215 yr 12 minutes ago, MJAlltheWay24 said: Great post. I wish they would just quite with regional scheduling for the tournament. It's so dumb. It sounds great in theory, but people greatly discount how few fans attend some of these games already and it neglects 90% of the top teams reside east of the Mississipi. This was the first Final Four ever to have four teams from west of the Mississipi.
April 8, 20215 yr On 4/7/2021 at 9:03 AM, bugatti said: Yep. And honestly, it is a great formula. They have the talent to win it all as evident by their ability to compete with teams early in the season. I give them props for scheduling tough OOC games and being highly competitive. Even if they drop a couple games early, the conference tilt allows them to rise in the polls and get up to a high seed and slotted to play in the West bracket, which traditionally is the easiest of the brackets. A break here and there and you can find yourself in the Final Four with the unpredictability of the tournament. Before Baylor the highest seed they played was #5 seed Creighton, a fringe top 25 team. (Another classic example of why I fundamentally dislike the NCAA tournament.) I have to wonder if perhaps this is due to the fact that they normally have a veteran team which is more prepared early in the season than come time for the tournament the teams which rely on younger players have a chance to catch up to them.
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