We are still in the ncaa tourney a 12 seed playin game.
PALM IS USUALLY CORRECT
This post was edited on 3/5 9:25 AM by libertychamp
PALM IS USUALLY CORRECT
This post was edited on 3/5 9:25 AM by libertychamp
Latest Palm Bracketology
- Thread starter libertychamp
- Start date
We've thrown Palm and the committee a curve ball. We don't have the quality wins that they want and have a bad loss but yet you look up and we are solidly the # 2 team in the AAC which probably deserves 3-4 teams. So how do you rectify that confusion???? The tournament games loom huge now.
A loss to SMU likely knocks us out even in Palm's bracket. Chance to play ourselves back in with a trip to the finals of the AAC tourney. Watch the other conference tourneys and tickets being stolen by upsets. The last four in is generally not a good place to be headed into conference tourney week as those teams are often knocked down by teams stealing bids by earning those autos. Lots of things yet to play out. Win at SMU of course and put this thing on ice.
I thought this before the Cincy game and still believe that we're two wins away from (narrowly) getting a bid. If we beat SMU we would just need to avoid the bad loss in the 1-8 game (it would help for UConn not to win the auto bid). If we lose to SMU I think getting to the finals may be enough as long as our semifinal win is against either Temple or Cincy (it would help if SMU beats us in the finals).
One thing to consider: the AAC title game is Sunday at 3:15. I think it's very possible that the general NCAA committee laziness could work in our favor. If (for example) we lose a close one to SMU followed by two impressive wins, the committee would have to choose between making multiple brackets (if they either exclude us or put us in Dayton) or just giving us a bye to the Second Round. I think there may be more than a couple committee members that have the "juror from Twelve Angry Men with baseball tickets" mindset and find a way to convince themselves that we should be in the Round of 64 regardless of Sunday's game.
Hopefully I'm not whistling past the graveyard...
One thing to consider: the AAC title game is Sunday at 3:15. I think it's very possible that the general NCAA committee laziness could work in our favor. If (for example) we lose a close one to SMU followed by two impressive wins, the committee would have to choose between making multiple brackets (if they either exclude us or put us in Dayton) or just giving us a bye to the Second Round. I think there may be more than a couple committee members that have the "juror from Twelve Angry Men with baseball tickets" mindset and find a way to convince themselves that we should be in the Round of 64 regardless of Sunday's game.
Hopefully I'm not whistling past the graveyard...
Beat SMU and it is a done deal. They will not leave out the American conference champion. Lose to SMU and get to the finals and lose to SMU again (especially if TU can beat Temple again) and there is a chance. Anything else, and it is NIT time.
I agree. The committee is not going to wait until one minute before CBS opens the brackets to try to decide whether to take TU in a TU-SMU championship matchup of the top two overall league teams. They are finished in their selections by the time that game starts.
Beating SMU will be a monumental feat for TU. They have better inside players than us and Nick Moore is a tuff-*** guard.
The 3 games we have lost this year we have had a tough time shooting over 30% for the game. SMU was like 28%, UCONN was 31% and Cincinnati was somewhere around 34%. Only the CIncinnati game I felt was due to great interior defense and blocked/altered shots, yet for some reason we stopped shooting from the outside in the last 5 minutes even though we were having a decent night from 3 (47%). I didn't think SMU and UCONN played exceptional defense in our games against them...we simply couldn't hit jack. The UCONN game lacked energy. The SMU game may have been too much energy.
I am not sold that we can't beat SMU or Cincinnati or anyone else in this league for that matter. Yes there are some match-ups that don't favor us, but there are certainly others that do. If we hit even 40% in the SMU or Cincinnati games, they come down to the last possession. Heck even the Cincinnati game was within 5 pts with the ball with 2 left. We turned it over...somewhat unforced. And our game plan vs. Cincinnati was to not let Ellis and Caupain beat us...and they didn't. Defensively whoever was guarding Cobb was to double on the big on the block to force the pass out. Cobb hadn't shown that ability to hit the outside shots consistently at all this year.
(The UCONN game was one of those games that is somewhat inexplicable and things were just off...they happen).
They need to play focused and loose on Sunday. Come out tight thinking how much is riding on the game and it could be a long afternoon.
I am not sold that we can't beat SMU or Cincinnati or anyone else in this league for that matter. Yes there are some match-ups that don't favor us, but there are certainly others that do. If we hit even 40% in the SMU or Cincinnati games, they come down to the last possession. Heck even the Cincinnati game was within 5 pts with the ball with 2 left. We turned it over...somewhat unforced. And our game plan vs. Cincinnati was to not let Ellis and Caupain beat us...and they didn't. Defensively whoever was guarding Cobb was to double on the big on the block to force the pass out. Cobb hadn't shown that ability to hit the outside shots consistently at all this year.
(The UCONN game was one of those games that is somewhat inexplicable and things were just off...they happen).
They need to play focused and loose on Sunday. Come out tight thinking how much is riding on the game and it could be a long afternoon.
I guess to be precise, if we were playing SMU in the final the laziness would help us since they would have to make two brackets if we were out (in that case they couldn't just "decide that we're close enough to out and move on" since they would have to put us in if we won the title game). But if we were playing UConn the laziness factor would work against us since it would be easiest to just slot the winner as a 12/13 seed and ignore the loser. So after thinking it over I agree with the posters above that if we lose to SMU on Sunday we'd have to lose to them again next Sunday to get an at large bid.
Agree, except that Cincy will be the 3 seed if they beat Memphis at home. We'd have to beat them to play SMU in the finals.
Cincy is tough but no tougher than Temple, IMO and Temple has the better guard play by far IMO. We shot poorly from the lane. Shaq missed 3 consecutive layups that I think he made more difficult than he needed to but he was able to get to the rim pretty easily. At least 2 of those attempts should have drawn a whistle. Cincinnati plays clean up top but they don't allow the shooter to really elevate because of the bumps down low and essentially riding the shooter to the rim. One was clean and Shaq just flat out missed. FTs were a huge issue. Even hitting 4 more and shooting about 68% and we are within a possession (before we started hacking down 7). Our offensive rebounding was good but we again were not able to capitalize on the 2nd chances we had. The other thing is I don't see Cobb really repeating that performance...
Again, we need the AAC refs to call a fair game. You want to call the bumps, then call it both ways. Somehow Cincy was allowed to be physical because their reputation was that of a physical team.