NCAA Basketball Thread 2024-2025
Quick OP here just to get us up and running
Things to watch for this year:
1. Can UConn 3-peat? Hurley won back to back championships with Clingan, Tristen Newton, and company. Can he make it a third with only one returning starter?
2. Who will be this years national player of the year? Zach Edey was the best player I've seen play college basketball in my lifetime. People throw the term generational talent around alot and Edey was truly a generational talent winning back to back national player of the year awards. But, now he's gone. So who can win the award?
- the 5th year guards in Mark Sears(Alabama) and RJ Davis(UNC) are a good spot to start. Both elite shooters and engines of an offense, they should lead two really good teams.
- the 5th year centers in Hunter Dickinson(Kansas) and Ryan Kallbrenner(Creighton) are also viable options. They'll be the anchors to what should be two really good teams.
- The phenoms: Cooper Flagg(Duke), Ace Bailey and Dylan Harper(Rutgers), VJ Edgecombe(Baylor), and Tre Johnson(Texas) lead a loaded freshman class.
3. Who are the contenders?
Spoiler
Lettuce college basketball
Glad I knew better than to come in here yesterday and bitch about Florida not being in the top 3.
There is no question Calipari is a historically great coach. Even if you don't count what he did at UK, he took ****ing UMass and Memphis to the final four. I thought maybe going to Arkansas would light a fire under him...nope dude is washed.
His coaching style is decades out of date. He doesn't understand basic efficiency let alone all of the little things that can be done to optimize it, and his charted decline tracks almost perfectly with the basketball world's increasing understanding that 3 > 2. His only chance at Arkansas was dumping the regular cast of assistants for people who actually understand how the game is played today and operating as a figurehead for recruiting.
Come on man
Alabama @ UK over/under set at 179.5. Game last year was 117-95. All I'm saying if nothing else game should be entertaining.
Nelson slicing and dicing BBN early
at the half
do you like offense? if so, then you loved that first 20 mins in Rupp
ESPN
Every possession is a foul so of course the efficiency will be high.
the sky high OR% in that half tells more of the efficiency story than anything else
Creighton sucks, but their inexplicable ownage of UConn continues. They're 8-2 all time (all 10 matchups have come in last 5 years since UConn rejoined the Big East)
UNC now a dog to make the tournament
Eh they've looked decent recently I think. Conference schedule not having chances for good wins a slight problem for them.
Thought Purdue would suck this year but they look vaguely competent.
Looks really stacked up top though. Feels like 3-4 team race to win it all.
Yeah, that’s why they’ve looked decent. The conference sucks. Today was an awful loss.
If Broome can get healthy for the tournament, this could be the 3rd time in 5 years where there are an obvious two best teams that meet in the title game. Baylor v Gonzaga and UConn v Purdue, this feels very similar to those years.
I just don't trust the teams at 3-9 to make the leap to compete with those two by tournament time.
Houston seems like they have worse guard play than past iterations
Iowa State plays too mucky of a style to separate from 3 quality opponents to reach a F4
Tennessee is Tennessee just without a Knecht level threat
The Big Ten teams are still Big Ten teams
Roast Level: 100
Calipari lost former NBA development guy John Welch after one season to Fresno State and basically replaced him with his son, 28-year-old Brad Calipari. “They don’t have anyone innovative, they are outdated in how they do things,” the assistant said.
Calipari and his staff have put together yet another team that struggles to shoot. That was a constant issue for the majority of his time at Kentucky. This group ranks 202nd in the country in three-point percentage (33.6 percent) and 216th in made threes per game (7.4 makes).
“There’s just no fear now when I see him on the other sideline,” one SEC head coach told Hoops HQ. “The game has changed and he is becoming archaic.”
Top 3 teams from week 4 are now #12, #19 and unranked.
UNC might be as all eliminated. Need a historic run for Hubert.
Damn and I just bet on them to make it
Maybe we’ll get a UNC/Gonzaga championship rematch in the NIT
Feels like they need to sweep the Q3/4 games (6-0) and at least split the Q1/Q2 games (3-3) to be in the convo. It's doable, but if they can't steal one from Dook there isn't much margin for error.
