NCAA Men's Basketball Tournament 2024 - Welcome to the Sweet Sixteen
- Thread starter Ale Xander
- Start date
Painful replay to watch. Houston is not a deep team so that is a killer.
Duke goes on a run and I don't see how Houston can keep up without Shead.
Duke goes on a run and I don't see how Houston can keep up without Shead.
Last edited:
This is the kelvin sampson theory - just pound the shit out of every player on every play and assume the officials won’t call a foul on every single trip down
That and endless NCAA violations
real standup guy
Vermont, James Madison, Houston without Shead, NC State. I don’t think Duke could have dreamed for an easier road to the Final 4.
Yup. No excuses. Shead injury such a killer for Houston. They looked great early on.
Seems like Creighton just fell apart after Knecht suckered the refs into overturning that OOB call.
It’s UConn and then a few steps down Purdue and then over a cliff everyone else. It’s been that way all year.
Not sure it matters too much. If Connecticut gets to the final they can only play one team from that side of the bracket and Purdue is still tracking to have the best chance.
Weird guy to say you hate IMO. Seems to just go about his way. Doesn’t talk, doesn’t preen.
Anyway.
Two years ago
View: https://twitter.com/midnightcampus/status/1507301448597573635?s=46
Last night
View: https://twitter.com/dukenba/status/1773925867678204267?s=46
If Duke somehow gets to the final then UConn won’t have had to play anyone better than a three seed to win it all. And if Clemson gets past Alabama, and Duke gets to the final, here would be UConn’s road:
16 Stetson
9 Northwestern (missing two starters)
5 San Diego State
3 Illinois
6 Clemson
4 Duke
Obviously some IFs there but it would be crazy for UConn to once again not have to face a top team on the road to a title.
We probably really need to see UConn vs. a fully healthy Purdue team in the final.
Last year as a 4 seed, their road was: #13, #5, #8, #3, #5, #5.
To basically have this happen two years in a row would just be ridiculous. I know you can only play who’s in front of you and it’s the other top teams’ fault for not winning, but still. To get through two straight NCAA tourneys never having to play a single top two seed, and only playing two teams higher than #4 would be nuts.
16 Stetson
9 Northwestern (missing two starters)
5 San Diego State
3 Illinois
6 Clemson
4 Duke
Obviously some IFs there but it would be crazy for UConn to once again not have to face a top team on the road to a title.
We probably really need to see UConn vs. a fully healthy Purdue team in the final.
Last year as a 4 seed, their road was: #13, #5, #8, #3, #5, #5.
To basically have this happen two years in a row would just be ridiculous. I know you can only play who’s in front of you and it’s the other top teams’ fault for not winning, but still. To get through two straight NCAA tourneys never having to play a single top two seed, and only playing two teams higher than #4 would be nuts.
Last edited:
Let's not forget that Duke was the #2 team in the preseason polls, and is currently #5 in kenpom. They were neck and neck with UNC heading in to the last game of the year; then they lost, and lost again to NCSU, and fell to the 4 line.
Duke is definitely better than the average 4 seed. But all games count, and they were a 4 seed for a reason. But my point stands. UConn for the second year in a row will have had a pretty easy schedule in the tournament. You just expect to have to beat a lot of really good teams to win it all. When SU won it in 2003, for example, their last three games were against #1 Oklahoma, #1 Texas, and #2 Kansas. UConn hasn't had to face a single team of that caliber and SU had to face three in a row.
He also gave precisely zero credit to Duke in his post-game presser. Did not congratulate them. Did not even mention them! Super classy
A Duke victory over UConn would be especially sweet given the 25th anniversary of the 1999 final.
Duke's not gonna make it and very well might lose to NC State again. They were being handled pretty easily last night until the best player in the game went down with an injury.
I don’t know if I’d go quite that far. Duke fell behind 8-0 in the first 2 minutes and then out scored Houston 13-8 over the next 13 minutes of horrible basketball even with Shead in. It’s not to say he didn’t matter, because it’s obviously a different game with him playing, but Duke righted the ship after a horrible start with turnovers on their first three possessions, and Houston couldn’t score even with Shead playing.
Would have some parallels too, given that people talk about this Connecticut team like people talked about that 199 Duke team. But I actually think Purdue beating UConn would be more like 1999. UConn had a great year that year but nobody talked about anything but Duke after the turn of the year. I could see Purdue kind of feeling that way.
I know people here love KenPom, here's his analysis:
The red line is when Shead went out, a near-bottoming out of Duke's win probability. It was all roses after that.
With all due respect to UConn - they are a juggernaut and IMO head and shoulders above everyone else - they shouldn't be talked about like that 1999 Duke team. That team lost a single game all year prior to the final, by 2 points, on a last second bucket in the Great Alaskan Shootout against 15th ranked Cincinnati. They outscored their opponents by nearly 25 PPG.
This year's UConn team has lost 3 times, including twice by 15+. Their margin per game is 18.
All that said, I hope we get a reversal of history.
Edit: 1999 Duke won 15 games by 30+. They were the 2007 Pats.
Last edited:
Again looking at Kenpom, that 1999 Duke team might have been the best college team ever. He'd have them as a double-digit favorite over 2024 UConn.
ESPN's win probability (unsure how they calculate it) had Houston at 75.5% to win prior to tip, and 77.1% to win when he got hurt.I know people here love KenPom, here's his analysis:
The red line is when Shead went out, a near-bottoming out of Duke's win probability. It was all roses after that.
That's interesting, they're basically at the same number when the injury occurred but had very different pre-game probabilities (Kenpom liking Duke quite a bit more than ESPN).
EDIT: Of course, ESPN says that Houston would be favored if they played UConn tomorrow so take their pre-game ratings with the appropriate grains of salt.
Too bad they didn’t give a trophy for that. :0)
Seriously, I wasn’t trying to compare them other than with respect to how everyone talks about them. Could they win against the worst NBA team, all that stuff.
UConn was fantastic in 1999 and did not get discussed much because Duke took all the oxygen in the room. Same is happening a bit with Purdue this year. That is the only point. I wasn’t trying to besmirch that fantastic runner-up Duke team! (Ok, that really was unnecessary. I couldn’t resist.)
You’re totally right about Purdue (and similar could have probably been said about Houston prior to the injuries)
Of all the games I watched this year, I thought Purdue Arizona was played at the highest level for the two teams. Arizona faded but at their best they were great. If Purdue plays like they did that game, there is nobody they cannot beat.
But the 1999 Huskies weren’t the NY Giants. They were absolutely awesome too. And though I think that Duke probably wins 6 out of 10 times against them, by no means was UConn outmatched in that game. They were a powerhouse in their own right.
Correct, they were much more like the 2007 Packers who finished 13-3 with a +144 scoring differential.
IIRC that UConn team was very hyped pre season but went through some struggles thus lowering expectations - or was that the 2004 team? Maybe 2004 as they slipped to a 2 seed?
The 1999 team was pretty well regarded as the second best team in the country all year. They finished the year 34-2 and their only losses were to ranked opponents — one with two starters out with injury (Rip Hamilton and Jake Voskhul).
Yeah must have been 2004 that I am thinking of. They finished with 6 losses, including back to back losses in mid-February. They rebounded to win 5 in a row, lost the regular season finale at Syracuse, then won the BET and of course the title. So, they won 14 of their last 15.
You’re ten years off but yeah. That 2014 team had such a weird year. They went into the year with relatively low expectations then beat three excellent team on Maui. Then dipped. The Big East was so stacked that year that even though they were a 9 seed in the Big East tournament, they were nationally ranked and a shoe in to make the NCAA tournament. They beat four ranked teams in those five games.
No. The 2004 team was incredibly hyped but didn’t live up to expectations during the regular season, dropping to the 2 seed line.
Not all that dissimilar to this year’s Duke team.
Edit: the 2004 team was preseason #1. That’s exactly what I was thinking of.
That year, Okafor was plagued with back issues the entire season so that did not help things. But, he was healthy enough in the BET and the NCAA's to make his full impact on the game.
As far as the greatness of this year's UConn team, it's really hard to compare teams of this age to 10-15-20 years ago. The portal has completely changed the game of team building. Teams back in the 90's-early 2000s were able to stay together and build cohesion over multiple years. That '99 Duke team was special because a lot of the key contributors were sophomores and juniors(Langdon the only senior) but that was the exception back then and not the rule.
This year's UConn team is special in part because they have multiple ways of dominating a game. They can win at any pace and multiple guys can beat you at any time.