Selection Sunday

[tmoney35]

MSU is bi-polar and has wins vs 2 #1 top seeds in Illinois and Michigan, as well as another over 2nd seed Ohio State!

I'm stoked about the 6 seed, but this terrifies me. Regardless of seeding, I don't think many people will look at MSU (or UCLA to a lesser extent) as underdogs against BYU on Saturday. In a way, that takes some pressure off our guys. Hopefully, they come out playing loose and confident!

[snoscythe]

If they start like they did in the WCC tourney against Gonzaga, they'll be fine.

If they stumble to find their rhythm like they did the night before against Pepperdine, BYU could be one and done.

[GAKunkel]

Not thrilled at the possibility of playing MCU. Apparently they are "down" this season.

I think between UCLA and MCU, I would rather play UCLA.

[EM_Puma]

Not thrilled at the possibility of playing MCU. Apparently they are "down" this season.

I think between UCLA and MCU, I would rather play UCLA.

I agree. In an interview today with Ken Pom, Ben Criddle asked him who would be the better opponent for BYU. Ken sided on UCLA. He said they have good players, but none are projected to make it to the NBA. MSU has the players, they've just been very inconsistent this season.

I don't believe though that I have ever seen 2 11 seeds like those two teams. I hope as someone noted, BYU sees themselves as underdogs and just play loose. We do that and we'll win. I just felt a whole lot more confident last year before COVID ruined everything.

[tmoney35]

I just felt a whole lot more confident last year before COVID ruined everything.

Just like how I'm 100% certain that BYU goes to the Final Four with Brandon Davies, and no one will ever convince me otherwise, I'm certain BYU goes to the sweet 16 last year. Senior laden and the best 3 point shooting team in the country. Breaks my heart that Childs and Haws never got a chance to play in the tournament.

[YNot]

There needs to be some way to punch an automatic bid so that we're not at the mercy of a committee picking 64+ at large bids (most of which would end up being P5 schools). I hate college football's post season and besides BYU don't really watch any bowl games. Maybe it should be the conference regular season champion instead. But yes, I do like the idea of a David at least being given the chance to defeat Goliath. Most conference tournaments heavily reward the top teams by giving them multiple byes. A team like Georgetown or Oregon St. has to win several games in a row sometimes 3+ days in a row. If they can do that, put them in over some bubble team who doesn't have a strong enough resume to be a lock. If we really don't want to cheapen the regular season why even have March Madness? Just declare Gonzaga champions right now! No, I love me some March and some Madness.

My only gripe is let's keep it to 64 teams and not keep expanding it so that everyone gets a medal.

The more the merrier. I wish they could somehow merge the NCAA tournament with the NIT so that regular season champs AND conference tournament winners were in the field and you had a losers bracket, so when a good team loses they can continue to play on the consolation side. More basketball would be a good thing, IMO.

Gripe #2: let the seeding be done by the NET ranking. I'd maybe even say let the at large bids be filled strictly by NET ranking. No bias involved. Sure, no computer ranking is perfect, but it's probably better than letting biased humans decide.

It wasn't intentional, but 14-seed Colgate would be a 2-seed if we went only by NET Rankings. BYU's top-20 NET Ranking benefited by losing to Gonzaga three times. Teams would eventually figure out a scheduling formula to game the NET Rankings.

[hawkwing]

That Michigan State - UCLA game last night was a real hard fought battle. Michigan State looked really good early but they fell apart at the end and you could see how tired they were. OT definitely didn't help. UCLA lost their leading scorer to an ankle sprain right at the end too. I imagine he'll be back against BYU but maybe not at 100%.