College Basketball

[rebmus]

Ole Miss women advance tonight over Gonzaga. 

Beating Stanford in the next round probably won't happen. Even so, still a good year in the process for Coach Yo.

[sportsmaniac10]

Good win for State today. That’s the best game I’ve seen them play all year. Had a good feeling for State when I saw their draw. Knew that States size and athleticism was going to be an issue for a team like Creighton. I know the next game is Notre Dame in South Bend but this is not the Notre Dame of years past. It’s still a very good team but ND isn’t a national championship contender this year and they are down 2 starters to season ending injuries. So the chance is there for State to make it happen and get to the Sweet 16.

 

Ole Miss also put together a great game to beat Gonzaga. It’s not often you see the team ranked 19th in the polls get handed a #9 seed for the NCAA tournament. But Ole Miss handled them with ease. Stanford is going to be a very tough task but they’ve hung with South Carolina, LSU, and Utah in the regular season so it’s not out of the question. But going to have to be nearly flawless to beat Stanford at Stanford. 

[Dawg83]

9 hours ago, Bulldogs4 said:

Purdue has lost to three straight double digit seeds in the NCAAT. 

Crazy thing about FDU is they didn’t even win their conference or their conference tournament. Only got in because Merrimack was ineligible due to Division I transition rules and FDU was the runner up.

[Bulldogs4]

Girls made a valiant effort at ND but came up short.
 

Looks like Ole Miss Lady Rebs are the Last Mississippi team still playing round ball but they play Stanford and that will take a great effort to pull off a win. 

 

Future looks bright at State as Purcell seems to have righted the ship. He signed a solid recruiting class this year as well.

 

Not sure what the future holds at Ole Miss but Coach Yo has slowly built a good program so I am presuming all should well in Oxford as well. 

[rebmus]

Things definitely look on the right track for OM and MSU women's hoops. 

 

I really like the effort by Yo's players and the style of defensive play. They remind me of Summitt at UT. 

Before anyone claims I'm comparing Yo to Summitt, don't take it out of context. The "in your face defense and 100% effort/no quit attitude" is the only thing I'm comparing. 

Yo would have to win 8 NCAA championships before being in the same conversation as Summitt as an overall coach. 

 

 

 

 

[MSTSatchmo]

4 hours ago, rebmus said:

Things definitely look on the right track for OM and MSU women's hoops. 

 

I really like the effort by Yo's players and the style of defensive play. They remind me of Summitt at UT. 

Before anyone claims I'm comparing Yo to Summitt, don't take it out of context. The "in your face defense and 100% effort/no quit attitude" is the only thing I'm comparing. 

Yo would have to win 8 NCAA championships before being in the same conversation as Summitt as an overall coach. 

 

 

 

 

She is a very confident coach and it shows in her players.   Nobody likes moral victories, but that OT loss to S Carolina a few weeks ago was enough to make them fear nobody.  They have a 6 point lead with a few minutes left.  That would be a huge win for OM’s WBB program. 

[rebmus]

Yo and the OM Ladies advance to the sweet 16 beating #1 seed Stanford. 

 

 

[Wcchaingang]

Keith Carter needs to pony up and make sure Coach Yo doesn’t go anywhere.

[Dawg83]

6 minutes ago, rebmus said:

Yo and the OM Ladies advance to the sweet 16 beating #1 seed Stanford. 

 

 

And good chance they will be facing Vic Schaefer and Texas. There are some parallels between Vic’s time at MSU and now Coach Yo at Ole Miss. Not the same highs for OM at this point, but they are clearly on the ascent.

Edited March 20, 2023 by Dawg83

[sportsmaniac10]

What a good game. Such a gritty effort from Ole miss playing at Stanford and refs making some questionable calls. Very happy for coach yo. Thought this team had sweet 16 potential at the beginning of the year but didn’t know if they’d be able to turn the corner and then when the draw came out I assumed we’d be going home tonight. Glad I was wrong. 

 

Also the female announcer calling the game, that I can only guess graduated from Stanford, was horrendous to listen to for 40 minutes. One of the most biased announcing crews I’ve heard in a while.

 

State also had a great chance to get thru and just didn’t make plays down the stretch. Notre Dame did not have an answer for Jessica Carter but could limited her minutes. Even with State not playing its best, they were in the game. Hope Purcell can keep the momentum going into the offseason. 

[Dawg83]

Three men’s SEC teams in the Sweet 16 with Bama, Tennessee, and Arkansas.

 

Bama has no one but themselves to blame if they can’t get to the Final Four. They’ve gotten a ton of help with upsets in their bracket. The 5 seed San Diego State will be the highest seeded team they would potentially play before the F4, because the bottom of that bracket is a 6 seed vs 15 seed. But Bama hasn’t really been tested yet so I’ll be curious to see how they respond when someone punches them in the mouth. Having said that, if Bama continues to play like they have since the SEC Tournament, they are probably winning it all.

 

Tennessee and Arkansas are in interesting spots thanks to the 1 seed being out of the picture in their regions (Hogs took down Kansas themselves). So those brackets are wide open. Tennessee has arguably a favorable Sweet 16 matchup with Florida Atlantic, who is a good team but no better than the Duke team that UT just handled. That was an impressive performance by the Vols that I frankly didn’t expect. Arkansas is in a bit of a tougher spot, having to play a really good UConn team and then the winner of a huge clash between UCLA and Gonzaga. But this is three straight Sweet 16’s for the Hogs (went to the Elite 8 in ‘21 and ‘22). Musselman just knows how to win in March.

 

[MSTSatchmo]

Arkansas has three probably first round picks.  They’ve been a sleeping giant all year.  
 

Bama is hard to slow down for an entire game.  I think San Diego State can match up with them physically, but they’ll have to make shots like they did in the last game.  
 

What Tennessee did to Duke was impressive.  I don’t know what to expect from them, but what Rick Barnes has done there is crazy.  He’s like 102 years old, but still recruits well and gets college kids to play his style.  

[rebmus]

21 hours ago, Dawg83 said:

And good chance they will be facing Vic Schaefer and Texas. There are some parallels between Vic’s time at MSU and now Coach Yo at Ole Miss. Not the same highs for OM at this point, but they are clearly on the ascent.

I was expecting Texas but Louisville came to play tonight and eliminated Texas 73-51.

 

[Bulldogs4]

Interesting that Schaefer really has not done anything approaching what he did at State so far in the three years he has been at Texas. Though they did make it to the Elite Eight in 2021 and 2022 before falling off the round of 32 this year. 
At his age time could start to be a factor. 
 

What he did at State was tremendous but I am not sure that he is going to win that elusive National Championship at Texas either. 

 

At the time he left I did not think that he was the right fit at Texas and I still don’t think it is. He is very much a blue collar, blood and guts, gritty coach. That style just doesn’t fit the spoiled, upward noised Longhorns. 
 

In the back my mind and I am sure most State folks minds was that he would return to A&M when Blair retired. I think he would have been a much better fit there and I think he could have won a NC there as a HC. 
 

Just don’t see him doing at the cesspool that is Austin and the University of Texas. 
 

All that to say good luck to Ole Miss against Louisville. Another tough match up but they very capable of winning it. 

[Dawg83]

2 hours ago, Bulldogs4 said:

Interesting that Schaefer really has not done anything approaching what he did at State so far in the three years he has been at Texas. Though they did make it to the Elite Eight in 2021 and 2022 before falling off the round of 32 this year. 
At his age time could start to be a factor. 
 

What he did at State was tremendous but I am not sure that he is going to win that elusive National Championship at Texas either. 

 

At the time he left I did not think that he was the right fit at Texas and I still don’t think it is. He is very much a blue collar, blood and guts, gritty coach. That style just doesn’t fit the spoiled, upward noised Longhorns. 
 

In the back my mind and I am sure most State folks minds was that he would return to A&M when Blair retired. I think he would have been a much better fit there and I think he could have won a NC there as a HC. 
 

Just don’t see him doing at the cesspool that is Austin and the University of Texas. 
 

All that to say good luck to Ole Miss against Louisville. Another tough match up but they very capable of winning it. 

I mean his peak seasons at State were Years 5-7. Like you mentioned, he’s only been at UT for three years and already has two Elite Eights. That said, you’re right, he may not match what he did at State, and he’s in his 60’s now too, so you wonder how much longer he’ll even want to do this. He never sold his house in Starkville and still visits pretty frequently. I know this because we were members of the same church in Starkville and he has definitely been there more than once in the last year.

[Bulldogs4]

Obviously he had to build State from the ground up and the first couple of years were lean and had a lot of growing pains. State fans bought into the program early on because they appreciated the effort the ladies played with and they could sense something was good was being built. 
 

Whereas at Texas, he already had the talent there and all the resources. There was nothing to build other than taking the team to back to the FF or winning a second NC. They have had a lot of success and have been to the SS and EE numerous times but their last Final Four was 2003. As we all know, you have to have a great team and have some luck to win it all. 
 

That is interesting that he still has his home in Starkville and visits occasionally. It is certainly an underrated city and community. 

Edited March 21, 2023 by Bulldogs4

[Dawg83]

Andy Kennedy is the Tom Izzo of the NIT. Lol. UAB beat Vandy to get AK back to another NIT Final Four.

[rebmus]

17 minutes ago, Dawg83 said:

Andy Kennedy is the Tom Izzo of the NIT. Lol. UAB beat Vandy to get AK back to another NIT Final Four.

Correction, Andy KeNIT. 

Kidding aside, good for AK and UAB. I'd like to see him and his team win the NIT and go deep in the NCAAT next year.... as long as it's not at any expense of an Ole Miss loss. 

 

[Dawg83]

42 minutes ago, rebmus said:

Correction, Andy KeNIT. 

Kidding aside, good for AK and UAB. I'd like to see him and his team win the NIT and go deep in the NCAAT next year.... as long as it's not at any expense of an Ole Miss loss. 

 

I realize the NIT isn’t that meaningful but I’ve always felt that some of the unique matchups and venues you get can be pretty neat. Like the year State hosted North Carolina or when Ole Miss got to play Syracuse in the Carrier Dome. I think there was even a year where Kentucky ended up playing at Robert Morris due to scheduling conflicts and it was hilariously awesome to see Kentucky basically playing a game in a high school gym, I think they lost as well.

 

I dunno, may just be me, but I thought it was cool that Utah Valley got to play a home game on national TV tonight, may be the first time they’ve ever gotten that. And they beat Cincinnati, too.

 

Edited March 23, 2023 by Dawg83

[Bulldogs4]

The NIT is still very meaningful. I get that some of the teams lack motivation if they feel they were NCAA worthy. But for the most part, it is tremendous for teams to continue playing and they gain valuable tournament experience for the future. 
And as 83 noted, you occasionally gets some cool matchups. 
Plus as a player, getting to go to NYC and play in MSG would rate as a cool experience. 
Mainly, it gives an additional 32 teams a chance to keep playing. For a team like Vanderbilt, that was huge. They were playing really well at the end of the season but had too many blemishes on their resume to make the NCAAT. So it was good that they could continue playing. 

[Unionman76]

the nit semi's and final are in las vegas this year

[Bulldogs4]

Oops 

I did not know that.

 

Oh well. Scratch that thought. 

[MSTSatchmo]

On 3/22/2023 at 9:43 PM, rebmus said:

Correction, Andy KeNIT. 

Kidding aside, good for AK and UAB. I'd like to see him and his team win the NIT and go deep in the NCAAT next year.... as long as it's not at any expense of an Ole Miss loss. 

 

He’s done a great job at UAB.   They had a pretty good team this year, just are in a one bid league and FAU had an insane year.  They’re actually about to beat Tennessee now.  
 

How about Kansas State.  They have no players that signed with K State out of high school.  That shows you what an impact the portal can have.   Picked last in the Big12, and now I’m the Elite 8 and playing as well as anyone.  

[Dawg83]

10 hours ago, MSTSatchmo said:

He’s done a great job at UAB.   They had a pretty good team this year, just are in a one bid league and FAU had an insane year.  They’re actually about to beat Tennessee now.  
 

How about Kansas State.  They have no players that signed with K State out of high school.  That shows you what an impact the portal can have.   Picked last in the Big12, and now I’m the Elite 8 and playing as well as anyone.  

Jerome Tang is an awesome coach. That KSU-FAU game will be fun and it’s cool that one of them will be in the Final Four.

 

Gonzaga-UCLA and Kansas State-Michigan State yesterday were maybe the two best games of the tournament so far.

[sportsmaniac10]

Crazy to think that FAU lost to Ole Miss in game 2 of the season and Ole Miss was pretty much in control 10+ point lead the entire game.

 

FAU then went 33-2 after that while Ole Miss went 10-21. And now FAU is in the Elite 8.

 

Tennessee is becoming pretty synonymous with choking in March. Really was expecting them to lose in the first round but then after the handled Duke I was wondering if this would be a year they broke thru to the final four…..my fault for drinking the koolaid.