March Madness 2025 Who ya got?

[Miyagi-Do Karate]

22 minutes ago, Simon said:

This comically bad review process is just sucking the air out of every game in this tournament.

It's far worse than any of the idiocy the NFL was guilty of over the last several years.

How do you expect to maintain any tension or drama when you repeatedly bring the galdanged game to a screeching halt for no reason 5 times in the last two minutes to double check that the tenths/second on the clock are perfect? 

Between this and the transfer nonsense, the boneheads in the boardroom are making the greatest tournament in the world unwatchable. 

 

 

 

Eat your heart out Wilt Chamberlain!

i despise basketball reviews. They need to get rid of them all. The NBA is the worst. I hadn’t realized it had trickled down to the NCAA.

[Augie]

Tennessee is currently 0-14 from 3 point land. It’s hard to win a basketball game like THAT. 

[Simon]

9 minutes ago, Augie said:

Tennessee is currently 0-14 from 3 point land. It’s hard to win a basketball game like THAT. 

 

They look like they're not comfortable being pressed by Houston's extended D and aggressive man.

[Steptide]

20 hours ago, Miyagi-Do Karate said:

i despise basketball reviews. They need to get rid of them all. The NBA is the worst. I hadn’t realized it had trickled down to the NCAA.

They are brutal. Imo they are way worse than football reviews. Once it gets under 2 mins in these tournament games, it's like every freakin play they're looking at something. It's brutal 

[Augie]

The big guy for Auburn looks like Kramer’s little brother against the karate class in the alley. 

[PromoTheRobot]

Hats off to the UB women who came back on Big Ten Rutgers and advance to the WNIT "Fab Four." Deepest postseason run for any WNY school in some time 

Edited yesterday at 01:35 PM by PromoTheRobot

[Mikie2times]

Tournament is not the same anymore. Nearly zero upsets. One buzzer beater. All 1's look like they will advance. Welcome to the NIL. 

[ExiledInIllinois]

2 hours ago, Mikie2times said:

Tournament is not the same anymore. Nearly zero upsets. One buzzer beater. All 1's look like they will advance. Welcome to the NIL. 

First time since 2008 that all #1s in FinalFour.

[Miyagi-Do Karate]

2 hours ago, Mikie2times said:

Tournament is not the same anymore. Nearly zero upsets. One buzzer beater. All 1's look like they will advance. Welcome to the NIL. 

not only that, I found most of the games to be really sloppy. The MSU-Auburn game was unwatchable. 
 

my theory is that college bball now is all about these big rugged 23-year old transfers. At least, Houston, Texas Tech, and Auburn are built that way.  There is a premium on physical defense and offensive rebounding. It sort of ends up drowning out a lot of the great athletic skill play. The athletic play is still there, but it’s sort of taken a back seat.
 

Duke seems to be the exception this year, but that’s because they have three man-child freshmen that have the physicality of 23-year olds. 

[That's No Moon]

6 hours ago, Mikie2times said:

Tournament is not the same anymore. Nearly zero upsets. One buzzer beater. All 1's look like they will advance. Welcome to the NIL. 

It's not just NIL, it's the transfer portal that goes with it.  The major programs scout the mid-majors more than they scout HS kids.  The days of Loyola of Chicago making a run are over. The players they had to make that run will get pilfered away before they get to that point.

 

IMO, this is the beginning of the end of what makes the tournament special.  Maybe there are a lot of people out there who are happy to see all 4 #1 seeds make it to the end. For me it's just very uninteresting.  As you said there were very few upsets, very few nail biting games at the end, no Cinderella team at all.  Boring.  Making brackets, which seemingly the whole country does, is boring if you can just mark down the favorites and be right most of the time.  It will take a couple years to be noticeable, but if we have a couple years in a row like this you'll see decreased interest.  Jacking up ticket prices at the sites didn't help either. I noticed a LOT of empty seats in most of the early round games regardless of who was playing or where it was played.

[sherpa]

4 hours ago, That's No Moon said:

It's not just NIL, it's the transfer portal that goes with it.  The major programs scout the mid-majors more than they scout HS kids.  The days of Loyola of Chicago making a run are over. The players they had to make that run will get pilfered away before they get to that point.

 

Head Coach Tony Bennett's surprise decision to retire at Virginia was the canary in the coal mine signal.

Stating the reason as the changing landscape of college basketball was code for the portal and NIL.

They spend all their time recruiting and raising money.

Such a shame.

 

[Doc Brown]

My decade long strategy of picking all the one seeds in my bracket has finally paid off.  Go DUKE.

[ExiledInIllinois]

6 hours ago, That's No Moon said:

It's not just NIL, it's the transfer portal that goes with it.  The major programs scout the mid-majors more than they scout HS kids.  The days of Loyola of Chicago making a run are over. The players they had to make that run will get pilfered away before they get to that point.

 

IMO, this is the beginning of the end of what makes the tournament special.  Maybe there are a lot of people out there who are happy to see all 4 #1 seeds make it to the end. For me it's just very uninteresting.  As you said there were very few upsets, very few nail biting games at the end, no Cinderella team at all.  Boring.  Making brackets, which seemingly the whole country does, is boring if you can just mark down the favorites and be right most of the time.  It will take a couple years to be noticeable, but if we have a couple years in a row like this you'll see decreased interest.  Jacking up ticket prices at the sites didn't help either. I noticed a LOT of empty seats in most of the early round games regardless of who was playing or where it was played.

OR: Maybe the selection committee finally got the seeding right in the last 17 years.   There still have been some upsets.

[Mikie2times]

7 hours ago, That's No Moon said:

It's not just NIL, it's the transfer portal that goes with it.  The major programs scout the mid-majors more than they scout HS kids.  The days of Loyola of Chicago making a run are over. The players they had to make that run will get pilfered away before they get to that point.

 

IMO, this is the beginning of the end of what makes the tournament special.  Maybe there are a lot of people out there who are happy to see all 4 #1 seeds make it to the end. For me it's just very uninteresting.  As you said there were very few upsets, very few nail biting games at the end, no Cinderella team at all.  Boring.  Making brackets, which seemingly the whole country does, is boring if you can just mark down the favorites and be right most of the time.  It will take a couple years to be noticeable, but if we have a couple years in a row like this you'll see decreased interest.  Jacking up ticket prices at the sites didn't help either. I noticed a LOT of empty seats in most of the early round games regardless of who was playing or where it was played.

Completely agree. I mean look at the magical Florida Atlantic run. Call them a Cinderella, but that team was extremely talented. In the sweet sixteen they had 3 starters from that squad starting for three separate teams. This would have been there senior year together (I think). 

[SinceThe70s]

7 hours ago, That's No Moon said:

It's not just NIL, it's the transfer portal that goes with it.  The major programs scout the mid-majors more than they scout HS kids.  The days of Loyola of Chicago making a run are over. The players they had to make that run will get pilfered away before they get to that point.

 

IMO, this is the beginning of the end of what makes the tournament special.  Maybe there are a lot of people out there who are happy to see all 4 #1 seeds make it to the end. For me it's just very uninteresting.  As you said there were very few upsets, very few nail biting games at the end, no Cinderella team at all.  Boring.  Making brackets, which seemingly the whole country does, is boring if you can just mark down the favorites and be right most of the time.  It will take a couple years to be noticeable, but if we have a couple years in a row like this you'll see decreased interest.  Jacking up ticket prices at the sites didn't help either. I noticed a LOT of empty seats in most of the early round games regardless of who was playing or where it was played.

 

I've been running a March Madness knockout pool since 2019. What makes the pool fun are the upsets and covers (if your team covers the spread you steal the winning team). Granted this isn't scientific as it's a small sample set and doesn't consider that a 2.5 spread and a 10.5 spread aren't equal but the numbers are interesting

 

 

 

 

[frostbitmic]

This tournament for the most part has been a snooze fest much like NCAA football has become. For me the transfer portal and the destruction of conferences has tempered my enthusiasm.

 

Has the NIT been any better ?

[Augie]

4 hours ago, sherpa said:

 

Head Coach Tony Bennett's surprise decision to retire at Virginia was the canary in the coal mine signal.

Stating the reason as the changing landscape of college basketball was code for the portal and NIL.

They spend all their time recruiting and raising money.

Such a shame.

 

 

Jay Wright  had plenty of success at Villanova as well, but decided he didn’t want to play by the new rules, and I don’t blame him one bit. The new rules kinda look like no rules. 

[Mike in Horseheads]

8 hours ago, Augie said:

 

Jay Wright  had plenty of success at Villanova as well, but decided he didn’t want to play by the new rules, and I don’t blame him one bit. The new rules kinda look like no rules. 

you got guys changing teams every year now which is ridiculous.  (this student athlete crap they say every year is even more comical! How many transfer credits are accepted with a d and f transcript)

[That's No Moon]

10 hours ago, ExiledInIllinois said:

OR: Maybe the selection committee finally got the seeding right in the last 17 years.   There still have been some upsets.

The highest remaining seed in the sweet 16 was a 10 seed and it was John Calipari's Arkansas. All of the mid major schools were gone in the first weekend.

[Augie]

13 minutes ago, Mike in Horseheads said:

you got guys changing teams every year now which is ridiculous.  (this student athlete crap they say every year is even more comical! How many transfer credits are accepted with a d and f transcript)

 

This is like pick up play at the Y for mercenaries. Xavier had a nice guard they brought in this year who did well, now he’s on the market for $1.5-$2mil. I don’t know about others, but as my interests wanes so does my revenue stream. I’m not paying MORE for NIL, I’m just going to care less. That means I quit making trips for games, buying gear and adding to viewership, therefore hurting TV revenue.