Yeah, thatās a bummer
Enjoy the fun in your home state!
Only lady Terrapins from state of Maryland.
And facing Iowa State!
Spokane, Washington? Seriously, could you get any further away from Auburn, Alabama for a fan base to travel? SEC basketball gets no respect. Make it to the 3rd round and give UConn your best - won by an avg 19 points in the conference tournament. You can do it - War Eagle!
1 Like
Iām really disappointed in all of the coaches turning down the NIT. Our obsession with best-or-bust is ridiculous. I have watched the NIT since I was a kid & Dick Vitale coached University of Detroit. A tournament is an opportunity for further team/player development ā¦ and if you think you were wrongfully denied an NCAA tournament bid, itās a chance to show that you have the great team you think you have.
6 Likes
ok; as long as weāre talking strange things in NCAA big dance; in NE we are shaking our heads and thinking WTH?! both UNL mens and womens teams made the tourney. both are playing TA&MU in the first round 3 hours from each other. And our athletic director just announced last week he is taking athletic director position at A&M. Coincidence?! or is NCAA playing games with us!?
2 Likes
The NCAA is playing games with you. 
2 Likes
If they put all the SEC teams in the southeast bracket, it would be just like a SEC tournament. No one really plays āat home.ā
And welcome to the late time zone. It sucks to be watching games that start at 10 pm and go well after midnight, no matter which time zone you are watching from.
2 Likes
I just checked Delta out of Atlanta to Spokane on Thursday and flights are close to sold out including the first class. 3 of the 4 Alabama teams in the tournament are in Spokane and the 4th is in Utah.
But all those Alabama teams arenāt SEC, and your argument was that the SEC got no respect. They try to mix up all the conferences, although now the conferences are so spread out that they sort of naturally go coast to coast.
Pretty much no one is happy with the teams picked this year or the brackets. Except NC State.
1 Like
I was talking about Auburn only in the first comment - didnāt realize at the time that UAB and Samford also made the NCAA. In addition, Auburn should be higher seed, we won our last 6 games and won the conference and Bama gets same seed and lost their last 6 gamesā¦something funky about this whole thing in their rankings. But, please donāt take me too seriouslyā¦we are still new at this basketball thing.
1 Like
Part of the problem was that a lot of schools that werenāt expected to make the tournament did as automatic qualifiers, and did that by winning their last 5-6-7 games (NC State, Long Beach State). Suddenly they needed spots, and yet other teams that had played well all year but slumped at the end also needed spots. Arizona and Purdue lost before the finals, and they needed bidsā¦it goes on and on, and this year they say is worse than the other years have been. UNC and Houston lost their conference tournaments, but they were always going to be invited to dance.
There is a formula for who you played and beat, who you lost to, who they beat or lost to, strength of conference, etc. I just pick by the colors and mascots
2 Likes
There is certainly a lot less angst with this method! 
1 Like
Picking by colors and mascots reminds me of the old Cheers episodeāDiane kept winning the barās weekly NFL football pool and nobody could understand how she did it. Finally she explained: she went with the teams whose cityās symphonies had a foreign-born conductor!!
5 Likes
And, perhaps a better way to win the brackets!
well, we are going to some opening rounds on thursday; itāll be fun.
but here is my question. bear with me.
there are four extra games to be played before the tourney starts; those teams will determine who actually gets into the 64 group.
eg: south ā seed 10 Boise St and Colorado are playing to see who gets that seed
and Virginia vs Colorado state in the midwest bracket for seed 10.
my question - if they are all seed 10 worthy, why are both teams not in the 64 bracket. And if they are just barely worthy of the 64 bracket, why arent those extra games for a seed like 15 or 16?
it means to me that 6 teams in each division (x 4 divisions + 24 teams ) are lower ranked than those teams. Why arent VA/CSU/CO/Boise teams in completely, and lower ranked teams duking it out?? i just dont understand that. thoughts?? because certainly, thereās not 24 teams who are auto admits, right?
Iād like to hear someone explain that, too, but my guess is because they have to put the conference winners from the lower conferences in, but schools such as UVA and Colorado State are in better conferences so are seeded higher.
There are 32 automatic bids to the tournament. Hereās a pretty decent explanation of how it all works:
2 Likes
They used to just have two play in games and they were both or 16 seeds, so just garbage games and the winners then went on to be trounced by the #1 seeds in their brackets (except for Virginia and UMBC a few years ago). But there are a lot of good teams that donāt get invited, so a few years ago they invented this āplay in for #10ā game x2. If they put these 4 teams in at #10/11, everyone else would move down 1-2 slot and youād still have really good teams seeded 15.
Just gets more mid-level teams a chance in the tourney. My team, Colorado, is one of the play in teams, and I would have been happier to have them seeded #1 in the NIT. Oh Well.
3 Likes
And the NIT!! Lots of great historic basketball powers. Villanova, Wake, Providence, Boston Collegeā¦
Cornell so close to beating tOSUā¦
1 Like
Got to be rooting for Long Beach St. Their coach was fired Monday before the conference tournament. He went ahead and coached the conference tournament and then made the big dance. Probably will be the only coach ever to coach in March Maddness that has already been fired.
5 Likes