After all that.....

[FlyersFan]

we have the following:

1seeds (2)
2seeds (2)
3seeds (1)
5seeds (2)
6seeds (1)

Arizona won the tournament in 1997 beating 3 #1 seeds as a 5 seed (they also finished 5th in the pac10), so it is certainly not unheard of to have 5 seeds marching on. You figure most of the time 5 or 6 seeds are teams like MSU and Tennessee who are from power conferences and were good but not great...and anyone with players can get hot and make a run.

I just find it funny after all the UNI's, Cornells, ODU's, St. Mary's etc...we're basically left with major programs (save Butler but you almost have to start counting Butler as on that level with all the winning seasons they've had and quality wins) at the end of the day in the elite 8.....kentucky, west virginia, ksu, msu, tennessee, butler, duke and baylor. pretty strong group of teams if you ask me.

this tournament basically was what they all are.....lots of crap going on until the dust settles and we get down to the sweet 16/elite 8 and then it's the power conferences and for the most part the cream of the crop. The only team im surprised at is tennessee because i think bruce pearl is an awful coach and they lost players. msu doesn't surprise me only because of the izzo factor. i think most people had wvu/ky and duke/baylor in their brackets. ksu as well. i think the one region that just got blown up was the midwest.

anyhow, hopefully it makes for some good games. there are certainly no smoke and mirrors teams left.

[hodown]

Agree that the final 8 is pretty strong and all of those teams can play, there shouldn't be any blowouts in this round. I think what's unusual are the teams names in the Elite 8: Baylor, Tenn, WV, Butler, KState are not household, but four of those five are absolutely stocked with athletes.

Tenn's run is a product of their draw, haven't really had to deal with much and are still fortunate they have MSU standing in their way to Indi as opposed to a stronger team. OSU is essentially a one man show and you can see it at the end of the game when everyone just stands around and watches Turner do his thing. On Turner's miss with about 12 seconds left that white guy got the board and was just scared ****less to kick that pass out, essentially costing them the game. Not to mention watching Lighty try to check Chism in the interior is a blatant miss match defensively for OSU.

I think we have four good games coming up, just not the UCLA's, UNC's, Uconn's, and Kansas' were used to seeing.

[Franchise]

Originally Posted by FlyersFan

I just find it funny after all the UNI's, Cornells, ODU's, St. Mary's etc...we're basically left with major programs (save Butler but you almost have to start counting Butler as on that level with all the winning seasons they've had and quality wins) at the end of the day in the elite 8.....kentucky, west virginia, ksu, msu, tennessee, butler, duke and baylor. pretty strong group of teams if you ask me.
.

Well part of the reason the BCS teams rise to the top almost all the time is that they have also have almost all the teams in the tourney that are seeded better than 10 or 11 and when there were other teams in this year they all played each other (Temple/Cornell, ST Mary's/Richmond, UTEP/Butler). When it's so difficult for a team to get a bid based on bias and predetermined perceptions about what they need to accomplish of course it's less likely they get deep in the tourney. And I don't think anyone can say that it isn't much easier to get a bid in a BCS conference regardless of talent since you get so many options for good wins at home and you rarely have perceived bad losses. But obviously that won't be changing anytime soon.

I think it's pretty obvious with the "eye test" that the margin from the top through around 25-30 that really any team can compete if they are given a chance in a fair environment and that many more of those top 25 teams are from non-BCS conferences.

[hodown]

It's probably not good for Kst when their 2 guards chuck up 30 shots and dish only 2 dimes. Butler dominated that game

[Franchise]

But they average 27 shots a game and 8 assists and could have had closer to 8 assists if their guys didn't travel or miss layups. It also would have helped Butler if they didn't turn it over 19 times when they average 12 a game. The team that played harder and smarter won the game, plain and simple.

[hodown]

Agreed. Is it me or does Kentucky just look lazy as hell?

[Franchise]

It looks to be a little like they aren't very well prepared to attack the zone and aren't interested in working hard other than Wall. I don't know if that is a product of Coach Cal's coaching but I have heard interviews where he discussed his tourney coaching and how all he cares about in the tourney is "Are my guys happy and physically ready to play because if they are they will play well and shoot well," And it seems that WVU's annoying, hard working style of play is frustrating them. The biggest difference between WVU and Cornell is WVU is physically talented enough to stay with them.

Plus that little lob over Ebanks out top to start UK's offense against the zone only really wastes time and resets the zone since it is so slow. As one of the few WVU backers it is nice to see so far. Now if they can keep it up.