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Midwest = Terrible Draw


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Complaining about our Billiken's draw in the Midwest regional now is a bit like crying over split milk, but I can't help wondering how far we could have gone as the #4 seed in the West regional.

Midwest

Seed. Team (highest AP ranking during season/current kenpom rank):

1. Louisville (1/2)

2. Duke (1/6)

3. Michigan State (4/7)

4. SLU (13/19)

5. OK State (13/26)

6. Memphis (17/42)

7. Creighton (12/16)

8. Colorado St. (22/30)

9. Missouri (7/21)

10. Cincinnati (8/40)

11. St. Mary's (26/23)

12. Oregon (10/32)

West

Seed. Team (Highest AP ranking during season/current kenpom rank):

1. Gonzaga (1/5)

2. Ohio St. (3/4)

3. New Mexico (10/24)

4. Kansas St. (9/34)

5. Wisconsin (17/10)

6. Arizona (3/15)

7. Notre Dame (17/38)

8. Pittsburgh (16/11)

9. Wichita St. (15/20)

10. Iowa St. (36/33)

11. Belmont (31/51)

12. Mississippi (16/29)

The only seed you can definitively say was better in the West was #6 Arizona/Memphis. All the rest are either a toss up or the Midwest wins easily.

I included the highest AP poll because I think that shows how good a team can be when playing at their best. Clearly we ran into the Oregon team that was playing at a #10 level rather than the one that wasn't ranked. Midwest had 6 teams at one point ranked in the top 10 compared to 5 in the West, 8 top 15 vs 6 in West, 12 top 26 vs 10 in West.

Hindsight is 20/20, but it would have been nice to have K State's spot in Kansas City and have a clear path to the Elite Eight. Oh well.

Heck of a season. Go Bills!

Loe, Glaze, Evans, Jett, McCall (Manning, Barnett, McBroom, Drew, Crawford) is a very good team for next year. Hard work over the summer and we can be in a similar spot next year hopefully with better luck.

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Gotta hope there are some shooters in that group. MM ended the year shooting terribly and with no confidence. Very difficult to understand considering how good he was the first 20 games. RL and Jake have proven to be a streaky shooters but nothing more, JJ can't be counted on, GG and DE need to be power players. Somewhere between McBroom, Drew, and Crawford we've got to find some reliable shooters.

Also, this board is way higher on Manning than it should be. He's was a 2 star recruit according to Scout and shows why on the court. Very skinny, not strong at all, with kind of a odd looking shot. If your team is counting on Manning for major minutes at the 5 spot, your team is in trouble.

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I agree that the west seed would have been better for us but we were the last #4 assigned and so they put in the Region of Death - that is how goes. We would have been better as the first #5 and we would have gotten a better assignment in my mind.

Apparently, the Selection Committee doesn't use the S-curve anymore, so this type of placement isn't supposed to occur...

http://espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/9064725/ncaa-tournament-2013-committee-chair-thinks-best-tournament-ever

"The committee no longer uses the s-curve, so Duke wasn't the worst No. 2 in being placed in Louisville's bracket as the top No. 1."

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Gotta hope there are some shooters in that group. MM ended the year shooting terribly and with no confidence. Very difficult to understand considering how good he was the first 20 games. RL and Jake have proven to be a streaky shooters but nothing more, JJ can't be counted on, GG and DE need to be power players. Somewhere between McBroom, Drew, and Crawford we've got to find some reliable shooters.

Also, this board is way higher on Manning than it should be. He's was a 2 star recruit according to Scout and shows why on the court. Very skinny, not strong at all, with kind of a odd looking shot. If your team is counting on Manning for major minutes at the 5 spot, your team is in trouble.

Totally agree on Manning. Wasn't impressed with anything I've ever seen out of him. He has the physical attributes but is tentative, has no court sense and looks like he just picked up a basketball. Everyone clings to Majerus' claim that he could be an NBA player. Well, right now, he isn't even a viable D1 player and believe it or not, Rick has been wrong about people before. It happens.

Lets just say he has a hell of a lot of work to do this summer.

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What's the point of even whining about the seeding? We got outplayed, they shot the lights out and we got blown out. We had to play MSU last year when they were the #1 seed and we fought them down to the wire. If you want to advance, you're going to play tough games almost immediately in the tournament.

Good teams get stronger and fight through, they don't ask for an easier schedule in the name of seeding justice. Waste of energy.

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Could be wrong but I predict Mike Crawford will play more than Grandy Glaze. And I waited all year for Manning to improve. He just needs work in the weight room. Nice kid but should have improved more. Crawford will energize this team now that KM can't any longer. Look for MM to step up.

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I don't care what fuoking region we were in, this team should have made its first sweet 16 in school history at the very least.

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I don't care what fuoking region we were in, this team should have made its first sweet 16 in school history at the very least.

Totally. Great season. But such a downer how yesterday transpired.

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Had we lost a decent game in the sweet 16 to the overall number 1 seed, I feel like I could have lived with it. I would have been disappointed for sure, but I could have lived with it. But we got embarrassed by a fuoking pac-12 team. It wasn't even close. I feel terrible for our kids. They deserved to go out better than that. Unfortunately, they were sent out to the court with no game plan and left it without any adjustments being made. Crews was given a golden opportunity and gotdam squandered it.

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No adjustments?

They lost the 1st half by 16 the second half by 1.

Seems like some adjustments were made to improve by 15 points.

No gmae plan?

3-21 is not a game plan problem its a shooting problem.

adjustments should have been made before the half. this wasn't the first time we looked totally confused by a zone defense.

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adjustments should have been made before the half. this wasn't the first time we looked totally confused by a zone defense.

We looked terrible against zones when RM was on the sideline.

If the Bills hit 10-21 from 3 instead of 3-21 and Oregon goes 3-9 instead of 7-9 the game plan looks pretty good.

Execution of the game plan.is a lot more important than.the game plan itself.

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We looked terrible against zones when RM was on the sideline.

If the Bills hit 10-21 from 3 instead of 3-21 and Oregon goes 3-9 instead of 7-9 the game plan looks pretty good.

Execution of the game plan.is a lot more important than.the game plan itself.

I would bet anything that crews gambled to concede the 3 and we got burned. oregon was able to make so many 3s because they were left wide-open all fuoking night. He got out-coached by someone with a girls name.

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We looked terrible against zones when RM was on the sideline.

If the Bills hit 10-21 from 3 instead of 3-21 and Oregon goes 3-9 instead of 7-9 the game plan looks pretty good.

Execution of the game plan.is a lot more important than.the game plan itself.

Please tell me what is our game plan? To compete who made more threes? C'mon, the tournament is just all about defense and matchup.

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Please tell me what is our game plan? To compete who made more threes? C'mon, the tournament is just all about defense and matchup.

The game plan was the same it had been all year. Hard nose in your face man to man defense.

Oregon got hot and beat us.

It happens.

Im not happy with the outcome the difference is that I blame poor play and you blame poor strategy.

No big deal just a dofference of opinion.

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The game plan was the same it had been all year. Hard nose in your face man to man defense.

Oregon got hot and beat us.

It happens.

Im not happy with the outcome the difference is that I blame poor play and you blame poor strategy.

No big deal just a dofference of opinion.

Thanks, dlarry.

I agreed with AMDG that we just let them shoot open threes, I think that is our defensive plan because they are not considered as a good shooting team. We just could not blame our players. Poor shooting is not their fault, I bet they want to make those buckets more than anybody else. If they had poor shot selection, we should blame them, but I did not see many. They are all great players and they have been executing well thru this whole year.

No big deal as long as we all hope Bilikens to be good in the future.

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Thanks, dlarry.

I agreed with AMDG that we just let them shoot open threes, I think that is our defensive plan because they are not considered as a good shooting team. We just could not blame our players. Poor shooting is not their fault, I bet they want to make those buckets more than anybody else. If they had poor shot selection, we should blame them, but I did not see many. They are all great players and they have been executing well thru this whole year.

No big deal as long as we all hope Bilikens to be good in the future.

All season, we gambled on teams shooting poorly from 3. This is how we lost to lowly Rhode Island. IMO, we should have defended against the 3 better. If you're going to concede anything, it should have been 15-20 foot jumpers.

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All season, we gambled on teams shooting poorly from 3. This is how we lost to lowly Rhode Island. IMO, we should have defended against the 3 better. If you're going to concede anything, it should have been 15-20 foot jumpers.

It is true. I am not happy we did not adjust immediately. I believed their high three point percentage is not because they were hot, it is because our defense make them hot.
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It is true. I am not happy we did not adjust immediately. I believed their high three point percentage is not because they were hot, it is because our defense make them hot.

SLU held them to 11 three point attempts. On the season, Oregon averages 15.6 attempts per game and shoots .332. So it wasn't like they were getting a lot more looks than they are accustomed to. In fact, they got off fewer attempts than normal, which is what SLU tries to do on defense. The fact that they hit 8-11 is more about a team hitting its few open looks, and hitting them at a much greater percentage than normal, and not about the breakdown of a team's defense. Defensively, you are looking to try to deny them the ability to get the shot off. SLU, for the most part, did that on the perimeter. Oregon went 4-6 in the first half and 4-5 in the 2nd half. They had a small number of attempts and happened to hit the majority of them. If that happens, there is nothing your defense can really do, and I don't know what adjustment could've been made.

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I believe I was correct. 5 games in 8 days with over 3000 miles of travel in between. We had no legs. I don't care who we played, but we should not have been made to travel from NYC to San Jose. We played one of the last games Sunday and then we were given the 2nd game on the 1st day with 3000+ miles of travel in between. Jet lag is real and it's even more real after playing 3 games in 3 days. We earned better from the selection committee. I'm not talking about being given anything, I'm talking about what we earned

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SLU held them to 11 three point attempts. On the season, Oregon averages 15.6 attempts per game and shoots .332. So it wasn't like they were getting a lot more looks than they are accustomed to. In fact, they got off fewer attempts than normal, which is what SLU tries to do on defense. The fact that they hit 8-11 is more about a team hitting its few open looks, and hitting them at a much greater percentage than normal, and not about the breakdown of a team's defense. Defensively, you are looking to try to deny them the ability to get the shot off. SLU, for the most part, did that on the perimeter. Oregon went 4-6 in the first half and 4-5 in the 2nd half. They had a small number of attempts and happened to hit the majority of them. If that happens, there is nothing your defense can really do, and I don't know what adjustment could've been made.

To add, it was really 1 player who killed us...Dotson went 5-6 from deep, which was over half their total attempts and 60+% of their made 3s. Just like how Indiana (or seemingly anybody) can't contain Wyatt, it is extremely difficult to stop 1 unconscious player

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SLU held them to 11 three point attempts. On the season, Oregon averages 15.6 attempts per game and shoots .332. So it wasn't like they were getting a lot more looks than they are accustomed to. In fact, they got off fewer attempts than normal, which is what SLU tries to do on defense. The fact that they hit 8-11 is more about a team hitting its few open looks, and hitting them at a much greater percentage than normal, and not about the breakdown of a team's defense. Defensively, you are looking to try to deny them the ability to get the shot off. SLU, for the most part, did that on the perimeter. Oregon went 4-6 in the first half and 4-5 in the 2nd half. They had a small number of attempts and happened to hit the majority of them. If that happens, there is nothing your defense can really do, and I don't know what adjustment could've been made.

I expected someone will bring up this question. First, I did not deny our ability to get the shot off. What I said is our defensive plan is to allow them shooting outside. It does not necessarily mean they will shoot a lot although we let them do that. Also, I meant we did not adjust immediately after they started shooting well. There was no timeout call when we were trailed by 7 points after ten minutes play. When Dotson started feeling it and became very hot, we began to put pressure on him, it is too late. We failed to stop him at the beginning and of course it is hard to stop him later, because he is hot already.

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To add, it was really 1 player who killed us...Dotson went 5-6 from deep, which was over half their total attempts and 60+% of their made 3s. Just like how Indiana (or seemingly anybody) can't contain Wyatt, it is extremely difficult to stop 1 unconscious player

Same story, Indiana let him shoot and failed to stop him at the beginning of the game, then he became hot and hard to stop. But look, Indiana held on and we were blew out. Although Indiana shot better than us, more importantly, they adjusted their defense and limited Wyatt to 3 out of 12 from the arc, this makes difference.

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