Midwest = Terrible Draw

[slufanskip]

Money. They can't put as many fans in the seats if teams are playing far from home. That is why both Mich & Mich. State were playing in Auburn Hills and Kansas and Kansas State were playing in Kansas City.

and why was that irrelevent for us this year. The money thing of course doesn't change.

[slufanskip]

I'm not saying it was some great conspiracy. However, they made us do something they don't normally make higher seeds do. In fact they rarely if ever do. I'd love to hear the reasoning behind it.

Those saying the travel and 5 gasmes in 8 days didn't affect our performance are wrong. Of course the team isn't going to make an excuse, I wouldn't expect them to In fact, I'm glad they don't. But when discussing the game and what was a poor performance, it is a factor.

[slu72 fan]

My take is slightly different. Generally, we've been good against a zone, by stretching it with side to side passing and DE. Ore. Used a soft half court trap which slowed us up, and took 10-12 seconds to get into an offense. That didn't leave us enough time to break down a zone as we have done in the past. Our guards were caught on the perimeter with shot clock running down. This caused them to force plays.

Oregon's width is terrific and this tool away our normal passing lanes. This forced a step or two further out.

Both of these things forced us into the poor shooting percentages. Most of the layups we made were off steals, not penetration against the zone.

[jimmy two times]

For a little perspective

In the last 3 years 25 teams have played on Sunday and made the tourney. Only 9 have been asked to play on Thursday.

Out of the 9, 5 were 5 seeds or better including us this year. The other 4 were placed close to home with Vandy going to New Mex from the SEC tourney in New Orleans which is under 1200 miles as the next closest

In the last 3 years 18 teams seeded 5 or better have played on Sunday only 5 were asked to play again on Thursday including us this year. We traveled 3000 miles from our game site on Sunday, again the next closest was less than 1200 miles. The other 4 were relatively close 850 miles or less.

The next closest for any of the 9 teams playing on Sunday and Thursday was about 1700 miles, not much over half of the distance we traveled and that was a 12 seed.

If the travel is of no or very little consequence why don't they make teams do it more often?

Let me just ask you this: why didn't it matter on Thursday? We played a game on Thursday morning (local PST time) and we were absolutely fine. 50+ hours later, we tip off against Oregon in the same location this is a problem? Delayed onset jet lag?

[JMM28]

Let me just ask you this: why didn't it matter on Thursday? We played a game on Thursday morning (local PST time) and we were absolutely fine. 50+ hours later, we tip off against Oregon in the same location this is a problem? Delayed onset jet lag?

3 games in 6 days. Going from NYC to STL to San Jose. I think that was the point. Shots were short all night.

[Clock_Tower]

This thread needs to end. It just makes us look bad. Sure, we may have gotten a tough draw. Sure, last I checked, San Jose does not appear to be located in the Midwest. Still, we go our butts kicked by a hot team which had been known for its interior play but which then also was lights out from the perimeter. All this happened when our team's shooting went really cold. Let's move on.