NCAA Tournament 2014

[CK86]

It will probably come down to whether Duke takes the game seriously or not. If they don't give a shit, they'll get beat.

I'm holding off purchasing tickets to the Indy games until I know they'll actually be there.

 

[DrKlahn]

Hall. He'll be the guy. On Rushmore with McCollum and Maynor. I can already see Quinn losing him now.

Real different player though:
Maynor '07: 321 2pt FGAs, 59 3pt FGAs
McCollum '12: 397 2pt FGAs, 176 3pt FGAs
Hall '14: 148 2pt FGAs, 198 3pt FGAs

Good player though. We should probably try to stop him.

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

I don't think we could've asked for much better. Louisville anywhere is bad. On the other side is 100% better. Tennessee needs to win 2 games to matter. Iowa is a typical 6 or worse and UMass is a typical 11 or worse. Michigan is not the type of team Duke sucks against. Get by Mercer.

 

[ZackM]

Doug McDermott is on the Bracketology show right now. He has the least personality of anyone I've ever seen.

 

[StopThePumpFakesShav]

I think there are good and bad aspects about the draw.

1. First round opponent- Not a great situation. Experienced team that can shoot threes (which can serve as a big time equalizer). That said, there's a big difference between a 14 and a 15 in my view. We're better off against Mercer than NCCU, but I don't feel great about a comfortable win in this one. Overall, upset with this matchup.

2. Second round opponent- Hard to evaluate since there's three possible opponents. Look, who the hell knows. I was super worried about drawing VCU, UK or Ohio State here, and we didn't do that. I'm not sure that Tennessee is actually good. I think in order of wanting to see the three teams vs. not wanting to see them, I'd go: UMass, Tenn, Iowa. I'm just not going to get overly worked up about Tennessee's ridiculous Kenpom rating when they went 11-7 in the SEC. Overall, I'm relatively ambivalent on this round. I'd feel great if UMass won. If Tenn or Iowa won, I'd be slightly unhappy, but nowhere near the way I'd feel if we were matched up against Ohio State, for example (like Syracuse is).

3. Third round opponent (assumes Michigan)--- I think we did about as well as we could've hoped here. Well coached, not incredibly talented- a 2 seed that is Kenpom #14. I'm happy with this one.

3. Fourth round opponent- L'Ville, Florida and Az are all really good. Playing Arizona out west would've been a disaster, I think. Key here, IMO, is that L'Ville, while they'll be the clear favorite to be in that regional final, is going to have to do it with the path of a 4 seed, not the path of a 1 seed like Arizona and UF. I think this is a better situation w/respect to the 4th round opponent than would be the case in either the South or the West. So, overall, I'm content with this one.

 

[aiw]

Stop trying to make me excited if we get past Mercer.

 

[DurhamSon]

What's going to be the pun if Duke loses the first game? "Dook was shown no MercY."

 

[bdotling]

What's going to be the pun if Duke loses the first game? "Dook was shown no MercY."

With a cartoon of whatever the fuck their mascot is raping the Blue Devil up the ass

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

Highest value picks in large office pools, based on likelihood of success and scarcity of pick, will be these, I believe:

East - Villanova
No one will pick them. UVA and MSU play each other first and that's a 50/50 game in Vegas. ISU is a super weak 3, but not to casual fans.

South - no idea
Really no idea. Maybe Florida but VCU and UCLA are better than casual fans know. The other side is pretty untrustworthy and will probably be unpopular but they each are unpopular equally relative to seed.

West - Creighton
No one will pick them. Still good on Kenpom and in Vegas. Arizona's 2nd round is not a gimme.

Midwest - Wichita State
If you can pick a 1 seed very few people pick, good value.

 

[bdotling]

What's going to be the pun if Duke loses the first game? "Dook was shown no MercY."

With a cartoon of whatever the fuck their mascot is raping the Blue Devil up the ass

Oh it's a bear

 

[ZackM]

Are we going to have a Bracket Challenge on here?

 

[DukeNukem05]

We could use the CBS group from last year

Link for DF bracket
People should still consider the privacy options there.

 

[ZackM]

I am currently in first place.

 

[DrKlahn]

Based on current Pomeroy rankings (and not factoring in location obviously), Arizona is guaranteed to play a tougher 2nd round game than UNC.

 

[rome8180]

Mercer is 99 on Kenpom and perfectly balanced (read: average) on defense and offense. They take a lot of threes. That's something we actually do defend well.

The only thing that worries me is their experience. Lehigh was better. Also, this Duke team is better than the 2012 team, regardless of regular season results.

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

Sagarin-based spread projection for the first few games relevant to Duke:

3 Duke by 13 over 14 Mercer
11 Iowa by 2 over 11 Tennessee
11 Iowa by 6.5 over 6 UMass
11 Tennessee by 5 over 6 UMass
3 Duke by 1 over 11 Iowa
3 Duke by 3 over 11 Tennessee
3 Duke by 7.5 over 6 UMass

2 Michigan by 19.5 over 15 Wofford
10 Arizona State by 1 over 7 Texas
2 Michigan by 5.5 over 10 Arizona State
2 Michigan by 6 over 7 Texas

3 Duke by 1 over 2 Michigan

Need UMass.

 

[DurhamSon]

Duke would be favored by the same margin over Michigan than the 11th seeded iowa? That's fucked.

 

[SeanMayTriedToEatMe]

Yes Iowa is equal to Michigan on Sagarin Predictor.

 

[DurhamSon]

Iowa's KP split is damn close to ours. I feel like we always beat teams that are essentially clones of ours, though. It's the grind-and-get-to-the-line teams that fuck us over, i.e Clemson.

 

[rome8180]

Yeah, more worried about tough defensive than elite offensive teams.