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I like Quincy and pulled for him to do well at Oregon. After his sophomore season, I expected him to do better than he did the last three years. I'm glad he was on a highly ranked team that had a great run in the NCAAs this year, but just because I don't think he had a great college career...

Quincy averaged 13.7 ppg and 8.4 rebounds during his sophomore season at SU, but never produced those kind of numbers any other year. He averaged less than 10 points and around 5 rebounds during his college career and I doubt any Oregon or Illinois fans would call what he did at those schools...

The seven at-large bids go to the highest ranked teams in the polls and most of those spots are expected to go to Big Ten and SEC schools. All of the contract details have not been released yet, but if those power conferences get five teams into the playoffs it doesn't seem likely that the...

The College Football Playoff committee signed a new deal with ESPN on Tuesday to broadcast the expanded postseason playoffs. The new contract will pay the Big Ten and SEC 29% of the upcoming contract which works out to around $22 million per school. The ACC will receive 17% ($13-14 million per...

When Colorado announced they were leaving the PAC-12 last summer, Jim Williams wrote that inviting SMU and San Diego State would keep the PAC-12 intact. Now he's saying there will not be a mass exodus of schools from the ACC because ESPN wants the conference to stay together. Another no-brainer...

If you thought this was an off year for ACC hoops, just wait until next season. Stanford hasn't made the Big Dance in ten years and Cal hasn't been there since 2016. SMU finished tied for 5th in the AAC and last made the tournament in 2017.

The NCAA is currently discussing expanding the tournament to 76 teams, but the major conference commissioners are pushing for an expansion format that favors the power conference teams. If the tournament adds eight more teams, I wouldn't expect they will expand the current First Four format of...

When Syracuse won the Big East Tournament in 1981 only one conference team was ranked in the polls after December (UConn was #20 for two weeks in January). Two years later BC, Georgetown, St Johns, Nova and Cuse were all in the Top 20 late in the season.

I went to the 1967 Final Four to see Kareem and UCLA play Elvin Hayes and Houston and you could buy tickets at Freedom Hall before tip-off. The popularity of college hoops really started to take off during the 1970s and absolutely exploded in 1979 during the Final Four featuring Larry Bird and...

When Syracuse was left out of the 1981 NCAAs after winning the first Big East Tournament in the Carrier Dome, it was not that controversial. The NCAA tourney had only featured 32 teams thru 1978, and until the 1974 ACC conference tournament final between #1 NC State and #4 Maryland, only one...

The NCAAs had fewer at-large bids in 1981. Only 48 schools got in back then.

You don't have to worry about NC State being over seeded like that. Six different Big East schools were ranked in the Top 25 at some point in February and March of 2006. The ACC has only had two schools in the polls this year.

Losing a couple of early games in a tough tournament like Maui can definitely hurt a team's ranking in the Top 25 polls, but it doesn't greatly weaken a school's NCAA chances or the conference's ranking much. Every team has dozen of games remaining to built up a resume for postseason...

Schools benefit in many ways from scheduling good non-conference opponents and playing in early season tournaments like Maui. Coaches learn the strengths and weaknesses of their team and it prepares them for the long season ahead. The thing which hurts your NCAA chances is not building a quality...

You put a lot of work into your posts but I'm not sure many college hoops fans will ever go for a 128 team NCAA Tournament. Colgate is the only member of the Patriot Conference that had a winning record during the regular season this year and giving two more schools from that league automatic...

I believe all of the upset conference tournament winners will probably keep the ACC from getting more than four bids. None of the league's bubble teams did anything to improve their resume in DC, but NC State sure did everything to play their way into the tourney. That was a performance for the...

The top 10 ranked teams were all eliminated early in the 2023. The 1 seeds went 5-4 in last year's tournament and the highest seed to make it into the Final Four was a 4 seed.

Hop took Washington to the NIT his first year and the NCAAs in his second. That kind of resume over seven years in a major conference always leads to a coaching change. After pulling for Mike to do well at UW, I look forward to him having a lot more success with another team.

Great Recap. You mentioned everything that stood out to me last night.

Clemson won 23 games and finished tied for 3rd in the ACC with a 14-6 conference record last year. North Carolina also won 20 games and had a winning ACC record in 2023. Neither school made the NCAAs. Virginia has won 20 games and is 11-6 in league play this season and has not locked down a...

SU shot over 60% in two of those wins and over 50% in their other two victories and the Cuse made at least 44% from three in all of those games. Our opponents have played just as poorly on defense in the four games we won.

It's a good thing Stanford and Cal aren't in the ACC this year because people would have even more Quad 3 league games to talk about. If the NET rankings had existed in 2011 when the Big East got 11 teams into the Big Dance or this was 2017 or 2018 when the ACC got 9 bids, everyone would be...

A bunch of teams from the majors conferences with its NET in the 40s did not get in last year. A number of schools with a poorer NET ranking jumped past other bubble teams because of their play late in the season and in their conference tournament. The NET is not the overriding factor used in...

I agree that a school that wins a regular season championship has done more to deserve a shot in the NCAAs than a team that wins a conference tournament, but after every conference went to money-making league tourneys, the NCAA had to install a selection system which limits the minor conferences...

Thirty-two conference tournament champs make the Big Dance now. The tourney might expand to 96 in the future, but allowing multiple schools from the Southland, SWAC, Patriot, MEAC, Horizon, Summit and other small conferences is the last thing most college hoops fans want to see, and the major...

I have been a college hoops fan for a long time and can always find things I like and dislike about every players game. Basketball is a lot more enjoyable when you appreciate what a player does well and adds to your team. I can recognize the things my team does poorly and the weaknesses in every...

A lot of teams from the major conferences with 20 or more wins and a NET ranking in the 40s and 50s did not make the NCAA Tournament last year. Six schools with a NET ranking of 45 or higher got at-large bids in 2023. NC St-45, Penn St- 48, Miss St-49, USC-50, Arizona St- 66, and Pitt-67.

The ACC has fifteen basketball members so one school is idle for league games played during the week or on the weekend throughout the season.

The number of wins is not a benchmark for getting into the NCAA Tournament. The NET is based around the quality of the teams you play and the stature of the teams you beat. Right now SU has only defeated one opponent who would be in the NCAAs if Selection Sunday was this weekend. Although...

Right. NIL has allowed young players to make a lot of money while they play college ball and work on improving their skills. The most talented young kids can make more money with NIL than they can with the NBA's salary cap to Ignite players. That is why Adam Silver is is talking about ending Ignite.

The talent in college hoops has been diluted by elite prep players going straight to playing in pro leagues overseas or the NBA's G League Ignite. The monopoly that colleges once held over young elite prospects was altered by these developments. The emergence of NIL payments to college athletes...

I don't remember if I saw any of Auburn's early games last year, but if I did he made no impression on me. It is always advisable to limit expectations until you have seen a player before. I've seen a number of redshirted freshmen go on to become 1st team All- Americans. On the other hand, I...

Chance Westry played in 11 games last year which exceeds the number of games a player can appear in and qualify for a redshirt season. Westry made 31.6% of his field goal attempts and 42.9% of his free throws and went 0-14 on 3-point shots. SU fans should not set their expectations too high...

Pearl Washington is my favorite player. Attendance at the Dome exploded when Pearl came here and he elevated the program into a destination for blue chip recruits around the nation. Melo is the best player I ever saw at SU. I knew that watching his first college game when he scored 21 points in...

The proposed Vegas tournament would have been a postseason basketball tourney without any NCAA involvement. Fox currently has broadcasting rights deals with the three conferences and the top 16 teams from the Big Ten, Big East and Big 12 that didn't make the NCAA Tournament would have been...

I believe the changes made by the NIT basically ended current discussions about a Vegas tourney. The NCAA runs the NIT and the new selection process guarantees more schools from the big conferences and home games for the top seeds. It settles things for the time being, but the likelihood of a...

The Vegas tournament was going to feature schools from the Big Ten, Big East and Big 12 who didn't make it into the Big Dance. The sixteen team tournament was going to start in 2025 and be broadcast by Fox Sports. This proposed future post-season tournament forced the NIT to change their...

Except for their loss to Carolina, all of Wake Forest's losses have been by seven points or less. With five remaining Quad 1 games, Wake has a solid NET ranking and just needs a couple of good wins to get into the NCAAs.

There are several sites that do NIT bracketology and yes, we are a NIT bubble team. Our chances of making it will depend on winning a few more games. I expect we'll have a pretty good idea about the NIT two weeks from now after the Notre Dame game. Go Cuse!

SU did not allow a single opponent to hit 60% of their field goals over eighteen years. This team has allowed three of our last four opponents to do that. Syracuse has allowed ACC opponents 79.2 points per game this season and has been outscored by seven points a game in conference play. We...

My main expectation was wanting to see improvement in our play and SU's return to a post season tournament. Reality- We are the only ACC team that has allowed a conference opponent to shoot over 60% in league play this season and have allowed opposing teams score two of the three highest point...

A lot of people seem to believe that beating the teams you are better than builds up a solid resume for post season play. With five weeks left in the regular season, SU has not defeated one opponent that would be selected for the NCAAs today with the exception of Cornell. The NCAA Selection...

The Big Ten and SEC have added schools that will greatly strengthen those conferences in football and basketball next season while the ACC picked up PAC-12 leftovers that will further dilute the league in those sports. I'm sure we will see a lot more posts about the ACC's conference ranking next...

The NIT has always favored playing early round games at sites with large fan bases. The tournament announced a new selection format in October that will guarantee the top two teams based on the NET Rankings who do not receive bids to the NCAAs from each of the six major conferences: ACC, Big...

Eleven regular season conference champs that lost in their league tourney had NIT automatic bids last year. All of the major conferences got a couple at-large bids and the Big Ten and PAC-12 had three teams in 2023. The current state of ACC hoops will likely limit them to two schools who have...

I would caution SU fans from focusing too much on an NIT bid. The NIT has not invited more than two ACC teams during this decade and is unlikely to select three, four or five middle of the pack conference schools. We have ten contests remaining in the regular season and the focus should be on...

Auburn has five quad games in its next seven contests. We are going to see a lot of movement in Bracketology and seed projections throughout February. Go Cuse!

Auburn has a big edge over us right now. They have beaten better teams than SU has (Va Tech by 17, Ole Miss by 23 and Texas A&M by 11). They have won six Quad 2 games and are blowing out opponents in those contests (Indiana by 28, Arkansas by 32 and St Bonaventure by 17. They are 4-1 at neutral...

People need to understand that a NCAA bid does not depend on how many games you win. The NET rankings and quad system revolves around the quality of your opponents and who you beat. The ACC was not a strong conference last year and this season is looking somewhat similar. Only two ACC schools...

Not really but if we continue winning our NET ranking will keep climbing. It's hard to believe that only three off our remaining games are certain to be Quad 1 contests but the conference doesn't a lot of really good teams this year. All SU can do is focus on beating their opponents. That is why...