Elite 8 game thread

[BaseballJones]

Number of men's Final Four appearances:

1. North Carolina (21)
2. UCLA (18)
3. Duke, Kentucky (17)
5. Kansas (16)
6. Michigan St, Ohio St (10)
8. Indiana, Louisville (8)
10. Villanova, Syracuse, Oklahoma St, Michigan, Houston, Cincinnati, Arkansas (6)

The most blue-blood Final Four in history.

 

[Ale Xander]

Number of men's Final Four appearances:

1. North Carolina (21)
2. UCLA (18)
3. Duke, Kentucky (17)
5. Kansas (16)
6. Michigan St, Ohio St (10)
8. Indiana, Louisville (8)
10. Villanova, Syracuse, Oklahoma St, Michigan, Houston, Cincinnati, Arkansas (6)

The most blue-blood Final Four in history.

4 of the top 8 in titles, too.

 

[BaseballJones]

4 of the top 8 in titles, too.

And on the theme of "blue blood", all four schools' primary color is blue of one shade or another.

 

[Ale Xander]

And on the theme of "blue blood", all four schools' primary color is blue of one shade or another.

Carolina has the prettiest shade, though.

 

[mauf]

Kansas is opening as a 3.5 or 4-point favorite (depending on the book) over Villanova, per Vegas Insider. No lines up yet for UNC-Duke; Yahoo is quoting Blue Devils by 4.5, but I don’t know what their source is.

 

[BaseballJones]

Kansas definitely should be favored. They're a #1 seed while Nova is a #2. And Nova lost a key starter to a terrible injury so they're down to really 5 effective players. I wouldn't be stunned if Jay Wright found a way, but Kansas ought to win that game. So ought Duke, by the way. Whatever the matchup, it should be a good game in the championship.

I think this is true about the NCAA tournament - we all love the upsets and Cinderella stories, but at the end of the day we want to see the best teams (or close to the best teams anyway) in the country go toe to toe for the championship. That's how this tournament has turned out, IMO.

 

[SumnerH]

Not sure if it has been said before, but Larranaga is the first coach to take two different schools as double digit seeds to the Elite Eight. And if he wins today (for FF) that resulting record may be a record that will not be broken.

FWIW, Larrañaga is proud of his tilde.

Though he couldn't figure out how to type it on a keyboard, hence why it wasn't used at GMU.

https://www.miamiherald.com/sports/college/state-college-sports/article1948454.html

 

[Ale Xander]

FWIW, Larrañaga is proud of his tilde.

Though he couldn't figure out how to type it on a keyboard, hence why it wasn't used at GMU.

https://www.miamiherald.com/sports/college/state-college-sports/article1948454.html

Subscriber-only content

 

[SumnerH]

Subscriber-only content

Relevant parts:

Jim’s father moved to New York and wanted his kids to “Americanize.” That meant not learning Spanish and pronouncing the last name with an extra-nasally American “a” — (LARE-uh-NAY-guh). But Jim liked the Basque pronunciation, the way his grandmother said it.

And then he went to a Catholic kindergarten with a strong-willed nun. On the first day, during roll call the teacher called his name the wrong way. “I tried to correct her,” Larranaga said, “And she wouldn’t be corrected. And that was it. It stuck.”
...
He tried harder to hold on to the traditional spelling — Larrañaga — but technology got in the way. Larranaga still doesn’t know how to make an ñ on a computer...The one place the tilde has remained constant (and an autographed George Mason University business card for sale on eBay appears to confirm this) is in Larranaga’s signature. He doesn’t think anyone noticed. Until now. Until Miami.

Larranaga was as shocked as anyone when he got his Hurricanes business cards: Jim Larrañaga. “I showed my wife. I said, ‘Hey, look at this. They were able to do it.’ ”
...
Larrañaga said he never asked that the tilde come back, but he prefers that it be used. And he never corrected anyone because he didn’t think you could include it, although the UM athletics department is using it on its website. He gives all the credit to the culture of Miami.

 

[tims4wins]

I think it's worse for Duke. They come in to this season with all of the typical expectations of a loaded squad, plus it's K's final year. Now they will be a heavy favorite to beat their rival in the Final 4. If they win, they still have a quick turnaround to play in a National Title against a team that might be better than them, and they will still have tremendous pressure to also win.

If they lose to UNC, it's total devastation. Coach K might pull a Brady and come back if that happened.

I suspect if UNC were to beat Duke their fans wouldn't care if they lost in the finals to Kansas by 400. Duke, not so much.

EDIT: Short version. If UNC loses it's a terribly bitter loss to a hated rival, but they exceeded expectations and should be thrilled with a Final Four. If Duke loses, it's the worst loss in program history.

I'd care just b/c I'm tired of losing to Kansas in the tourney and if it was Nova it'd be nice to get them back for 2016.

It's going to be a huge ask for the coach of the winning team to have their team ready to play in the final, though. You just won the biggest edition of the rivalry in history and now have to play another game less than 48 hours later?

I'd much rather be in Self's or Wright's shoes.

Fully agree with both of you. I’m dreading Saturday. I don’t see how it will be remotely enjoyable. Even a Duke win by 20+ would probably not feel all that great.

 

[Awesome Fossum]

Relevant parts:

Very cool. Thank you for sharing.

 

[MillarTime]

Excited for the blue blood final 4. Each team is playing as well as they have all year, Villanova might have injury issues unfortunately.

Certainly and they were already not a deep team at all. Losing Moore is devastating for them. I think you will see Gillespie-Daniels-Samuels-Slater-Dixon all play close to 40 from here on out.

 

[54thMA]

Number of men's Final Four appearances:

1. North Carolina (21)
2. UCLA (18)
3. Duke, Kentucky (17)
5. Kansas (16)
6. Michigan St, Ohio St (10)
8. Indiana, Louisville (8)
10. Villanova, Syracuse, Oklahoma St, Michigan, Houston, Cincinnati, Arkansas (6)

The most blue-blood Final Four in history.

For a very, very casual college basketball fan like me, that's pretty cool actually, the royalty of the sport on display.

 

[54thMA]

Fully agree with both of you. I’m dreading Saturday. I don’t see how it will be remotely enjoyable. Even a Duke win by 20+ would probably not feel all that great.

If they only win by 18, we'll all be thinking of you and hoping you're ok.

Relax and enjoy it, this is what you follow the team for, moments like this, coach K will be on his A game, as will his team.

 

[BaseballJones]

Certainly and they were already not a deep team at all. Losing Moore is devastating for them. I think you will see Gillespie-Daniels-Samuels-Slater-Dixon all play close to 40 from here on out.

Thats a really good five, but it’ll be hard to not fatigue under Kansas’ withering on ball pressure.