NCAA Basketball 2012-2013 Season Catch-All

They said it's a bigger RPI difference (~240 or so last night?) than any of the #1 vs #16 seeds from last year's tournament. If Kansas played like that in March they could be the first 1 to lose. But doing it last night might have hurt their chances for a 1-seed. That is definitely going down as a "bad loss" for selection.

Kansas has not been playing at a level they should for some time. Self was pretty adamant when they got ranked with Michigan for split #1's that they were nowhere close to playing that level of basketball.

Basically, Elijah Johnson has been terrible at PG, and Thaarpe doesn't seem ready to take over. It will be interesting to see if Self gets EJ straightened out, kr if he comes up with a different solution.

Big picture, I think they will be okay, but Self will let them struggle their way out of it. I'm less worried about seed than seeing them get their mojo back.

And #1 Indiana goes down again.

Parity. It's great. Anybody can win this thing.

Speaking of upsets, I had given up this season for lost already, but the Aggies just beat #20 Mizzou in College Station. My parents actually took my daughter, even though it started after her usual bedtime!

They left at halftime and I suppose they finished it on TV.

Wow. Awesome overtime game for Wisconsin-Michigan today.

GameDay game for Louisville tonight @Notre Dame. All the analysts but Digger (of course) picked us this morning, so I feel pretty good. Having Digger pick against us is good luck.

And saw recently that Louisville has the best road conference record since joining the Big East, so bring it on, Irish.

Stele wrote:

Wow. Awesome overtime game for Wisconsin-Michigan today.

GameDay game for Louisville tonight @Notre Dame. All the analysts but Digger (of course) picked us this morning, so I feel pretty good. Having Digger pick against us is good luck.

And saw recently that Louisville has the best road conference record since joining the Big East, so bring it on, Irish. :cool:

I'm headed to that game tonight, second row seats!

I'm exhausted just watching those 5 OTs...

Missed free throws doomed us again. Should have never went to the first OT, much less 5.

And Louisville's lack of clutch shooting is staggering. 5 times we had the ball, score tied, shot clock off, with a chance to win the game. Regulation and the first 4 OTs. 2 times we didn't get a shot off (1 was shot after the horn). 3 other times we got a forced jump shot.

And then we had a chance to tie in OT5, and took a terribly contested 3.

We desperately need a shooter, and soon.

Whoa. Just got back from that ND-Louisville game. Stele – I was surprised by UofL's free throw shooting woes down the stretch (with the exception of Russ Smith). They shot like the end of the Denny Crum era!

Also, the officiating seemed horrible. I couldn't see replays, so I don't know for sure, but it seemed inconsistent and just unusually bad (though I couldn't say it favored one team or another, just was bad).

Still, what a fun game to see in person!

firesloth wrote:

Also, the officiating seemed horrible. I couldn't see replays, so I don't know for sure, but it seemed inconsistent and just unusually bad (though I couldn't say it favored one team or another, just was bad).

Yep. Although that's par for the Big East.

The one where Cooley fouled out was a bad call for Louisville. There were a couple of blocks called on Louisville for just standing there and ND running into them in either OT 2 or 3, but then when Russ Smith tried the same move baseline in OT 4, no call.

Sometimes they call a bumping foul on a screen out front, other times they completely let it go.

The key is to win by enough that officiating doesn't matter. Louisville up 6 with 50 seconds left should not lose. But Grant 3, 3, 3, 2+1... insanity.

The key is to win by enough that officiating doesn't matter. Louisville up 6 with 50 seconds left should not lose. But Grant 3, 3, 3, 2+1... insanity.

That is definitely true! When UL ran that beautiful inbounds play to Russ Smith to put them up by 8, I thought it was over...

Damn, Firesloth. That must have been reminiscent of some of our APFB 2K8 games! Congrats!

I'm not sure we will even make the NIT this year. Wow...just wow

Cal has managed some big wins (none bigger than beating #7 Arizona in Tuscon today) and some bad losses (home against Harvard). We have 5 of our last 7 games at home. CBS has us as a #68 RPI before this big win today, so we have a pulse but still on life support. A NCAA bid is still a longshot unless we manage to win out and win at least a game or two in the Pac-12 tourney. The only thing that I know is that any time I watch them on TV they lose, so I'm on radio silence with them, only reading about the results after the game.

ESPN started Bubble Watch earlier this week.

No mention of Cal at that point. Maybe that will at least get them on the list?

Stele wrote:

ESPN started Bubble Watch earlier this week.

No mention of Cal at that point. Maybe that will at least get them on the list?

Ya, I wouldn't put us on that list just yet either. We have home games against UCLA, Colorado and stanfurd and an away game @Oregon, 4 teams that are on that list with better RPI's than us (pre-Arizona win). We probably have to win 3 of those 4, with one of them preferably @Oregon, and make sure we win the rest of our games. Given our inconsistency that is a long shot at best. We've been on a roll lately beating Oregon and winning @Arizona in the last 10 days. Starts this week with a huge game (for both of us) home against UCLA. If we can get a W then I think we'll officially be on bubble watch.

And boom! Kansas looks like they are back with a 47-29 lead over K-State at half. The key has been sophomore Naadir Tharpe owning the point with 6 assists and 7 points. Getting solid guard play kept K-State from collapsing dwon low, and led to 17 points from freshman sensation Ben McLemore.

If they can hold this lead, Kansas will be tied with K-State for the lead in the Big 12, and own the tie-break with two wins over the Wildcats. Gotta extend that streak of 8 conference championships.

Edit: And Kansas goes on to win 83-62. The last time KU lost three games in a row (and had K-State roll into Allen Fieldhouse ranked higher than the Jayhawks) was 1988. Things turned out well then.

I have a feeling this is going to be a wild year in the NCAA tournament for a lot of teams.

Jayhawker wrote:

I have a feeling this is going to be a wild year in the NCAA tournament for a lot of teams.

Yep.

There's a good 8-10 teams that could win it all given the right tournament draw. And another 10-15 that could make a Final Four run. It feels wide open.

Awesome new tool from CBS.

How can your team's RPI go up today?

Type in your team at the top and it will show you which games and results can improve your RPI today. :cooL:

Oh Cyclones, why do you do this to me?

Notre Dame wins its second OT game in a row. Not as epic as the first one...just a single OT needed to defeat DePaul.

Woohoo. Going to the Louisville @South Florida game today!

Stele wrote:

Woohoo. Going to the Louisville @South Florida game today! :cool:

Nice! Have fun!

Hah, well Cal has moved from not on the bubble, to now "In" according to sportsline. Its been a great 4 game stretch for Cal, going 3-1 with wins against Oregon, @Arizona and fUCLA with a loss @ASU sprinkled in there. Tonight is another huge game home against USC, and as I mentioned before I didn't even turn on the fUCLA game at all and we won going away, so I have to keep that going. May be hard as we get near the finish line, but I'm a team first player, so I'll keep ignoring the broadcasts.

Gumbie wrote:

Tennessee getting hot at the right time. I'm hopeful they can put a run together and sneak into the tournament.

Beating UK isn't that big a deal this year you know? Anybody with an RPI in the top 100 can do it.

Also, there was a guy wearing a UK shirt I saw about 2 minutes after I walked into the Sun Dome today. USF-Louisville, and a UK fan shows up. Seriously, I try to tell you guys about those people... and I just can't explain enough how messed up they are.

Tennessee getting hot at the right time. I'm hopeful they can put a run together and sneak into the tournament. SEC has been sh*t this year so it's going to be hard to move up in the RPI unless they can beat A&M on the road and then Florida at home.

Stele wrote:
Gumbie wrote:

Tennessee getting hot at the right time. I'm hopeful they can put a run together and sneak into the tournament.

Beating UK isn't that big a deal this year you know? Anybody with an RPI in the top 100 can do it.

Also, there was a guy wearing a UK shirt I saw about 2 minutes after I walked into the Sun Dome today. USF-Louisville, and a UK fan shows up. Seriously, I try to tell you guys about those people... and I just can't explain enough how messed up they are.

Yeah they aren't as good this year for sure but anytime you beat KY by 30 it's still an accomplishment.

Gumbie wrote:

Tennessee getting hot at the right time. I'm hopeful they can put a run together and sneak into the tournament. SEC has been sh*t this year so it's going to be hard to move up in the RPI unless they can beat A&M on the road and then Florida at home.

Anyone can beat Texas A&M right now, sadly. We are hot one night and terrible the next.

The existence of this thread just depresses me right now. We were a perennial tourney presence in the Billy Gillispie years, and for a year or so afterwards. Now we're in the desert.

Hey Carlbear, you're welcome buddy.

I turned the game on with Cal down 10 and saw an 11-0 run for the lead, and Crabbe going off, and a 18-3 run so far.

Looks like you might have this in hand with 90 sec left.

Stele wrote:

Hey Carlbear, you're welcome buddy.

I turned the game on with Cal down 10 and saw an 11-0 run for the lead, and Crabbe going off, and a 18-3 run so far.

Looks like you might have this in hand with 90 sec left. :cool:

haha thanks... I of course didn't watch and we won.. i had a minor panic flipping channels and didn't realize the game was on one of the local channels, not a cable sports one and saw about 3 seconds of the game... my wife thought I was going to have a stroke. Reading twitter and reports it looks like our coach shoved Crabbe at some point and he went off and we went on the big run.

Go Bears! Still have some big games to go, but we're the hot team in the west right now.

Carlbear95 wrote:

Reading twitter and reports it looks like our coach shoved Crabbe at some point and he went off and we went on the big run.

Yeah, they showed a replay of that. Sometime early in the 2nd half, maybe the under 16 timeout, he comes to the bench and coach two-hand shoves him in the chest, along with saying something. And then his teammate is pulling him away from the bench, talking to him. But yeah I think he scored 14 of his 23 after that point. So it worked.

Hopefully the media doesn't get on your coach too much. I think it was a calculated move and he was just trying to fire up Crabbe. Didn't look like any actual physical violence or malicious intent. Just a wake-up call, which worked.