I know it’s been discussed elsewhere, but I’m very curious to see how Duke plays without Foster and Ngongba.
Any analysis I’ve read/hears about it is fairly glib: “as long as as Cam Boozer is still playing…”
That’s a lot of rim protection and floor general-ness that’s now gone. What happens when/if Malik brown has to play 30+? What about boozer foul trouble? Can Cayden boozer shoot enough?
Does Duke defense lose a step if they can’t sub as freely?
All in all, I’d still probably take Duke v the field, but it’s like 51% instead of 75% or whatever.
Georgia Southern, and Southern Miss too, putting on a demonstration that rest = rust. Tearing through the Sun Belt conference. They’re beating teams that had several days off.
I like the idea of trying to protect a likely bubbly 9-seed from an all-downside matchup with a 16-seed and running into your bubbliest team somehow being an 11-seed who now has an all-downside matchup.
I’m very surprised by that pick. Personally I would pick Duke even with their injuries because of their talent level across the board.
I also am not that concerned about what happens in the ACC tournament as long as we don’t drop in seeding. Frankly I would rather the guys get some rest. We’re a four seed regardless unless we beat Duke in the final.
Thanks! Protecting the 9 seed from a bad loss makes as much sense as anything. I think going with 14 or even 12 probably better serves that goal, but I guess you have to try to balance inclusion of as many ticket buying/TV watching fanbases as possible too.
I don’t know, do you think the Tuesday session is an even break even proposition? I can’t imagine ESPN values it very much and ticket sales are sparse. You have to rent the arena an extra day and add a day of production costs and travel costs for 3 extra teams plus an additional night’s stay for 3 other teams.
I’m inclined to pick Duke even with the injuries. BUT, Haney’s questions are valid, AND they are vulnerable if 3s aren’t falling, which they weren’t against UNC in the first half.
Also, they could fall into the trap of only looking forward to the Big Dance.
I don’t want to lose to Miami. As I whined about in another thread, the Miami love is getting to me. We are better.
Agree there isn’t much upside for us this season, but I wouldn’t say no to some hardware in Odom’s first season…. I’d probably rather make the sweet 16 though!
But I would love to become an “actually the only ACC championship that matters is the tournament” guy for a bit.
And actually I like us in this setting more than most teams because of our depth. We can probably afford a longer conference tournament run than most at this time of year (as long as we don’t take any injuries on…).
Yea it’s that simple. Don’t want Cal losing a game to BC in situation like this year
Big Ten had the opposite problem where they left out a bubble team in Nebraska last year because they lost like a six way tiebreaker and ended 15th (or whatever the first spot out was) so now everyone makes it
Remember, Virginia is only allowed to lose once in March. So that means we either win the ACC tournament and lose in the NCAA tournament, or lose in the ACC and win the NCAA.
Pitt
Stanford
Syracuse
SMU
Wake Forest
Virginia Tech
NC State
Louisville
California
Florida State
Clemson
Virginia
Miami
Duke
North Carolina