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Virginia showing why we don't need to expand the tourney.

I grew up in the valley and I love the Bennetts but yeesh, Ant'ny doing a number on ye olde rods and cones.

Bennett is another guy that probably isn't going to be overly successful in the transfer era. He's gotten some but is not ruthless enough about turning over garbage on his roster. He does love recruiting against Wisconsin or guys from the state, though.

I bet on McNeese and Grand Canyon

Don't know what's worse in this COL/BSU game, the quality of basketball or having 3 reviews in the final minute.

How do they determine who gets a play-in game? Doesn’t it make sense to take the 8 worst teams and have them play with a chance to make it? Yet we have two 10 seeds playing each other.

MissKhriddleton wrote:How do they determine who gets a play-in game? Doesn’t it make sense to take the 8 worst teams and have them play with a chance to make it? Yet we have two 10 seeds playing each other.

I think for the non 16 seed matchups, it usually ends up as ‘last 4 in’ teams from respected conferences

MissKhriddleton wrote:How do they determine who gets a play-in game? Doesn’t it make sense to take the 8 worst teams and have them play with a chance to make it? Yet we have two 10 seeds playing each other.

As noted in another post, it's 2 games comprised of "last 4 in" at-large bids and then 2 games that include the worst 4 16 seeds.

A lot of people do want it to simply be the last 8 at-large teams.

That seems fine and may draw more eyes but it'll water down the actual first round (slightly).

I think you guys are answering kinda the opposite end of his question, so just to be more explicit - the reason it's not just all 16 or 15 seed match-ups or whatever is so it isn't just punishing small, automatic bid schools. It would kind of be against the historic spirit of the tournament.

Can't wait for round 1. I have a 1:30-2:00 meeting/call this afternoon. otherwise is all hoops while I "work".

Kerb Hohl wrote:Bennett is another guy that probably isn't going to be overly successful in the transfer era. He's gotten some but is not ruthless enough about turning over garbage on his roster. He does love recruiting against Wisconsin or guys from the state, though.

Yeah, it looks like the NIL and portal is hurting him and program. He tends to identify undervalued high school players (though plenty of top 100 players have gone to Virginia) and develops them over 3-4 years. It's not a one-and-done program, not a program that tends to recruit guys who can come in and blow the doors off immediately. Hell, Brogdon and Hunter both redshirted.

But now guys have been transferring out as soon as they don't get playing time, though really only one or two have done much elsewhere. In the meantime, the kids he has brought in as band-aids haven't really been too good. His transfers-in before the NIL and portal days were often top contributors, but they knew they were going to sit a year and grow with their new teammates.

It's actually pretty miraculous that Virginia finished 3rd in the ACC and had as good of a record as they did. They lost their entire frontcourt through graduation and transfer. Only one returning starter (Beekman, who carried the team all season) and only three other guys - Dunn, McKNeely, and Murray - who got minutes on the team last year. Only one transfer was really any good - Groves, who shot the three fantastically, except for the in the tourney. But that's all he could do.

Bennett's slow style of offense has worked really well in the past, but that's been with very skilled players who were willing to be at the school for 3-4 years, learn the system, and not worry about their individual numbers. Those days might be over. Fortunately, it sounds like Bennett might know that, based on his post-game comments, so we'll see if he attacks the portal any differently.

The tourney loss was a perfect snapshot of how flawed this year's team was (and again, how good of a job Bennett actually did with the talent he had). No post game at all. None. Thus, no ability to get easy points inside or offensive rebounds. In turn, defenses didn't have to respect the bigs and could plaster themselves to shooters, none of whom could create for themselves. No open threes turned into nervous shooters and the whole thing spiraled. On defense, the bigs were not quick/aware enough and were routinely abused (both main guys were in their first year on the team) and the non-Beekman guards couldn't stick with their guys (McKneeley did have a bum ankle and to their credit, they do try hard).

The team had just enough talent, grit, and ability to get hot from three that they could win a lot of close games, but when they lost things usually got away from them and got ugly.

This was a different team than some of the old "bad for basketball" teams. Many of those (the title team, the Brogdon teams, for example) were good offensively, just slow paced that fans didn't enjoy watching. This team was just bad on offense and combined with the pace, it made for some ugly, ugly stuff at times.

Ran a charity event the first weekend of March Madness for going on 10 years now.

Cook tons of good food, invite people over, we raise money for cancer*.

Loading up my car to head to my friend's house and start cooking right now. I can't wait.

*We're against it.

RogerMurdock wrote:

Kerb Hohl wrote:Bennett is another guy that probably isn't going to be overly successful in the transfer era. He's gotten some but is not ruthless enough about turning over garbage on his roster. He does love recruiting against Wisconsin or guys from the state, though.

Yeah, it looks like the NIL and portal is hurting him and program. He tends to identify undervalued high school players (though plenty of top 100 players have gone to Virginia) and develops them over 3-4 years. It's not a one-and-done program, not a program that tends to recruit guys who can come in and blow the doors off immediately. Hell, Brogdon and Hunter both redshirted.

But now guys have been transferring out as soon as they don't get playing time, though really only one or two have done much elsewhere. In the meantime, the kids he has brought in as band-aids haven't really been too good. His transfers-in before the NIL and portal days were often top contributors, but they knew they were going to sit a year and grow with their new teammates.

It's actually pretty miraculous that Virginia finished 3rd in the ACC and had as good of a record as they did. They lost their entire frontcourt through graduation and transfer. Only one returning starter (Beekman, who carried the team all season) and only three other guys - Dunn, McKNeely, and Murray - who got minutes on the team last year. Only one transfer was really any good - Groves, who shot the three fantastically, except for the in the tourney. But that's all he could do.

Bennett's slow style of offense has worked really well in the past, but that's been with very skilled players who were willing to be at the school for 3-4 years, learn the system, and not worry about their individual numbers. Those days might be over. Fortunately, it sounds like Bennett might know that, based on his post-game comments, so we'll see if he attacks the portal any differently.

The tourney loss was a perfect snapshot of how flawed this year's team was (and again, how good of a job Bennett actually did with the talent he had). No post game at all. None. Thus, no ability to get easy points inside or offensive rebounds. In turn, defenses didn't have to respect the bigs and could plaster themselves to shooters, none of whom could create for themselves. No open threes turned into nervous shooters and the whole thing spiraled. On defense, the bigs were not quick/aware enough and were routinely abused (both main guys were in their first year on the team) and the non-Beekman guards couldn't stick with their guys (McKneeley did have a bum ankle and to their credit, they do try hard).

The team had just enough talent, grit, and ability to get hot from three that they could win a lot of close games, but when they lost things usually got away from them and got ugly.

This was a different team than some of the old "bad for basketball" teams. Many of those (the title team, the Brogdon teams, for example) were good offensively, just slow paced that fans didn't enjoy watching. This team was just bad on offense and combined with the pace, it made for some ugly, ugly stuff at times.

Right. I don't expect you've read my long arguments on the Badgers thread, but they're suffering through something similar, though Gard has either gotten lucky with Storr or is adapting (slowly) and at least did well enough this year.

It's just not worth it to laser focus on the undervalued recruits and mold them over 3-4 years like UW and UVA have. Now you can just have NDSU and Toledo do that for you. You need to boot the guys that don't look promising off your roster early on, fill those spots with developed players from mid-majors, and use your other spots to gamble on high-impact freshmen or major level transfers.

Also hurting Bennett is the game being more and more about getting to the line with the new rules. Your offense needs to drive action to the basket to take advantage, which Bennett's never really has. That one may be fine assuming better offensive players.

Kerb Hohl wrote:Also hurting Bennett is the game being more and more about getting to the line with the new rules. Your offense needs to drive action to the basket to take advantage, which Bennett's never really has. That one may be fine assuming better offensive players.

As much as I love him, it has been amazing how bad Dunn has been on offense. He can't do anything except dunk. I can only imagine who awesome he'd be if he could put the ball on the floor and drive to the rim.

This year, I guess we didn't want our guys getting to the free throw line. They were horrible.

Each year we do a spread pool and it’s my favorite March Madness bracket ever.

16 guys, each person gets 1 team from each region. Randomly assigned. You play spreads. If your team covers, even if they lost the game, you move on. Last year I had Fairley Dickenson who covered first two rounds and then took over FAU. Rode them to second.

jschligs wrote:Each year we do a spread pool and it’s my favorite March Madness bracket ever.

16 guys, each person gets 1 team from each region. Randomly assigned. You play spreads. If your team covers, even if they lost the game, you move on. Last year I had Fairley Dickenson who covered first two rounds and then took over FAU. Rode them to second.

This is interesting. So if the guy who originally had FAU got his covers correct also, do you both have FAU at that point?

MikeIsGood wrote:

jschligs wrote:Each year we do a spread pool and it’s my favorite March Madness bracket ever.

16 guys, each person gets 1 team from each region. Randomly assigned. You play spreads. If your team covers, even if they lost the game, you move on. Last year I had Fairley Dickenson who covered first two rounds and then took over FAU. Rode them to second.

This is interesting. So if the guy who originally had FAU got his covers correct also, do you both have FAU at that point?

I'll do an example for sake of ease:

I have Stetson, you have UCONN. UCONN is -26.5. Let's say Stetson loses by 22. I take over UCONN in the next round and then you are out. You don't get to pick what side of the line you are on, you just get your team and their spread.

So second round I would have UCONN vs whoever moved on between FAU and Northwestern.

Today I have Miss. State (ML), Oregon +1 and McNeese St +6.5. Since I made those bets yesterday Oregon is now -1.5, McNeese St is now +7.

Tomorrow I have FL Atl -2.5, Tex AM +1 and Grand Canyon +5.5. Since I made those bets yesterday those numbers haven't moved.

jschligs wrote:Each year we do a spread pool and it’s my favorite March Madness bracket ever.

16 guys, each person gets 1 team from each region. Randomly assigned. You play spreads. If your team covers, even if they lost the game, you move on. Last year I had Fairley Dickenson who covered first two rounds and then took over FAU. Rode them to second.

Damn, wish I had this information a few days ago lol.