Grading the Conferences through the first two rounds

[Guest]

pac 10:beerbang:

[GamblinMan03]

The reason why I only had UNC and Duke in the sweet 16 in my brackets were simple, matchups. Everyone had UNC of course and I picked Duke because im a homer.

The ACC was very good this year, a lot of balance throughout the entire league but Im going to tell you why I had all those teams bowing out early. It was because of matchups. BC just wasnt gonna cut it against G-Town, I know they almost pulled the upset but thats besides the point, they werent as good as the big east's best.

Two teams I wasnt impressed with down the stretch was Maryland and UVA. Besides that 7 game winning streak, Maryland didnt do anything all season long. They lost to Miami in the tourny, I knew they would struggle against Davidson and had them losing to Old Dominion. A good team but not one of the 16 best. And Virginia, again they faded down the stretch and Tennessee was going to be too much for them to handle, and they were. Nothing inside killed them, that is why I had the Vols.

I had Va Tech losing because they simply played a better team in the 2nd round, So. Illinois. They beat them once this year and knew they would do it again. The matchup was horrible for VT.

Also had Georgia Tech going out in the first round mainly because they are young and inexperienced and I put a lot of value in UNLV. The runnin rebels got ripped off with a 7-seed, couldnt pick against them.

Just think the ACC teams that others had going far, lost because they played better teams. Its not a knock on the conference, it was one of the top conferences all year top to bottom. So many competitive games, I just didnt think any of them besides UNC had an easy road to the sweet 16.

[FlyersFan]

I think the ACC gets WAYYYY too much credit when things are going well and WAYYYYY too much heat when they don't. It's a very good conference every year. Some years better than others.

GM- one point i have to make is that you can't tell me those were good teams from the ACC and all of them had bad matchups. You are the ACC for heavens sakes. If the ACC is the almighty then you should be creating bad matchups for other teams with your 3rd, 4th place teams etc...not vice versa. Also, Maryland had a huge size advantage inside which Majerus and several other people pointed out along with Veteran leadership and good guard play. And they lost. To Butler. I guess my point was that if we are at the point where we are going to say that Butler is a bad matchup for Maryland, UNLV is a bad matchup for GATECH, Tennessee is a bad matchup for UVA, VCU is a bad matchup for Duke and on and on, then i am sorry, the ACC people need to stop telling everyone this conference deserves a ton of bids every year. If we are at the point where the best team from the CAA or the Horizon is every bit as good as the 2nd, 3rd, 4th place team etc...from the ACC, then it is time to stop taking so many ACC teams and look at some more mid majors. This brings up a very valid point and i was serious...i don't want to hear ACC people panning for 7, 8 and 9 teams when they are no better than mid major teams apparently. You just can't have it both ways. You can't say that the ACC is this great conference and then turn around and tell me the teams like UVA, VTech, Maryland and Duke who finished like 3rd through 6th have matchup problems with SIU, Butler and VCU and Tennessee. I think at this point we need to start taking more Drexels and less Georgia Techs. Unless you say to me the ACC is down this year which i can't get any ACC person to say. Heaven forbid the ACC might be a little weak one year. Shame on anyone for suggesting that. I must defend my conference's honor and thou shall not smite my conference. It's one or the other, either the ACC is down and nothing special this year (which i feel is the case and resulted in some less than stellar tourney performances), or your conference wasn't down this year and your top tier teams just got waxed by some mid majors and some 3rd place teams from other conferences at which point i will emphatically tell you then the ACC is WAYYY overrrated. It's one or the other. But i couldn't get you to say the ACC was down this year for 2 straight months. You wouldn't hear of it.

I really value your opinion on hoops GM and you certainly bring a lot to the table and this forum. But this past season you were very vocal about how good the ACC was and now i feel like you are back peddling in saying all these teams had bad matchups (which i think is a cop out). VTech wasn't very good at all outside of knocking off UNC and Duke. They lost some bad games this year. MD you are absolutely correct on. Duke was very very very average. It was nothing perosnal, it was the basketball truth. UVA was a solid team who was great at home, but did falter late. BC did very well for themselves considering the loss of a key player. GTech won some big home games at the end, but really falls into the category of MD more than anything. I think the honest person looked at the ACC this year and said it was a conference full of good to decent teams, but not full of dominant teams. And apparently it was full of very beatable teams. I am not an ACC critic.....i love basketball period and i enjoy the flavor of every conference. But the ACC people live basketball life with rose colored glasses and it gets annoying. If i would have posted this paragraph (actually i think i did post something similar) in February you wouldn't have had any of it. When in reality, for a neutral knowledgable fan, it was very visible in being this way all along. That GM is what rubs people the wrong way about ACC people is they do nothing but tout the conference and then when it goes south, there is this magic bag of excuses sitting there. My honest assessment is what i posted. Lots of decent teams, not really any great teams (CAR is beatable too, though, they were the best team in the ACC this year). And here you sit still telling me the ACC was a very very good conference this year. With of course help from the magic bag of excuses.


one other shout out to the Pac10. A conference nobody really pays attention to, especially judging by how "shocked" everyone was by USC's win over Texas. I watched a TON of pac10 hoops and there are some very good coaches and some very good teams that unfortunately the rest of the country doesn't get to see that much.

[Skinsfan]

Not sure who it was but a couple weeks ago someone said that teams like GaTech and NC State would go 29-2 in the CAA.... now all of a sudden the CAA should be considered a major conference... lol

[Realtechfan]

I don't think GT should have gotten in the big dance to start with (Don't get me wrong I'm a Huge GT homer) but was very happy to see them in but we were just horriable away from home the last 2 years and was way to young to play with a team that starts 4 SRs

Thats why I took UNLV ML I think we were better suited for the nit where we could have gotten a home game or 2 and the bad thing is critt and thad may jump to the NBA this year leaving us in the same place next year young and inexperienced I hope I'm wrong and they both stay but I think at least one will jump

I also agree over all the ACC was dissapointing in the big dance this year and the SEC and pac10 has to this point been the best

[Horatio]

I Said

Not sure who it was but a couple weeks ago someone said that teams like GaTech and NC State would go 29-2 in the CAA.... now all of a sudden the CAA should be considered a major conference... lol

the first quote and still think it. However, I do not agree with the estimation of the CAA and their performance post season has borne that out as well. A very lame Duke team should have easily dispatched VCU, whose record was close to 29-2; had Duke made their free throws, they would have. (I know, coulda woulda shoulda).

VCU played hard, has some decent players, but frankly they don't have a single guy who will make the NBA, unless it is Maynor. And I do not see that happening.The bottom feeders of the ACC all have future pro players on them, and Ga Tech has two that could go next week as freshmen.

That being said, the ACC showed up poorly by its standards. Carolina may get knocked off next round:then again, they may show up at the Final Four.

I think people have fallen for the nice story that the non majors are somehow , as leagues, close to the major powers.They are not now, nor have they ever been.

[GamblinMan03]

FF I respect your opinion and agree with you on a lot of points. I overrated the ACC this year and I will admit that right now. I thought Duke was better than they were and I still think they are better than what they finished. I think the ACC was a good conference top to bottom but never did I say this is a conference that was going to get 2-3 Elite 8 teams. I never once mentioned that because I watched all these teams this year and said how UVA sucks on the road, MD is going to be inconsistent come tourny time, GT is a young inexperienced team.

I said this ACC team deserves 7-8 teams the field and I still believe that. You cant deny they deserved the 7. If you want to say 6 then ok but like you talked about above, GT had some big home wins to end the season.

As good as I said the ACC was this season, it was a down year. That doesnt make the ACC bad, im just saying it was a down year from previous years. Why was it a down year? I dont want to sound like a homer when I say this but I think you all can agree with me, but it was a down year because Duke had a down year.

Before last season, the ACC had atleast one final four team for I dont know, the past 10 years. Plenty of those times were Duke and UNC, especially Duke. With them struggling this year, the only team that I knew had a real shot was Carolina.

Anway my point is that some conferences are good in different ways. Some are top heavy with talent and some are good top to bottom. ACC was good top to bottom this year. But like I said, I never said more than 1 team had a shot at the Final Four in the ACC.

[bookiekilla]

I think at this point we need to start taking more Drexels and less Georgia Techs.

[GamblinMan03]

Drexel really proved overthwise in the NIT when NC St came to their house and beat them. I know its just the NIT and no one gives a **** but for a team like Drexel, that was a big game for them to prove to the committee that they should have taken them.

[bookiekilla]

If you want to say 6 then ok but like you talked about above, GT had some big home wins to end the season.

:uhu: That they did...yes GT lost in the 1st round to UNLV, but YES they also deserved to be in the Big Dance. GT had 8 wins this year against teams with an RPI in the top 50 and I truly believe earned their way into the tourney with wins over UNC and Boston College. Hell, GT was the last 'real' team Memphis played and beat them on a Neutral court....There are 2 teams in the sweet 16 that GT played during the regular season, UNC and Memphis and the Jackets had W's against both of them...I'm not about to get into an argument about what conference is better, etc....but just because the ACC teams didn't do well in the tourney so far, does not mean they didn't deserve to be in there in the first place...how a team does in the post season is not a reflection of whether they deserved to be there or not.....if that was the case than OSU didn't deserve to play for the National Championship in football:gulp:

[GamblinMan03]

UNLV was a tough matchup for GT. They were under-seeded as a 7 seed, they should have been a 5 at the lowest.

But FF, one point I wanted to clear up is when I said bad matchups for ACC teams and I totally think I was right on many of those teams. With the exception of Duke and yes, Maryland I will say that every other team besides UNC had a bad matchup in the 2nd round.

[bookiekilla]

And even though UNLV was a tough matchup for GT, if we can keep them off the offensive boards in the last 2 mins of the game, GT wins the game:bang: