bierce

Who was a surprising one and done under Barnes? Joseph is the only guy I can think who didn't reek of one and done on arrival, and even he was a top 20 recruit.

OU beat Georgia, and Boise State and Colorado State played their way into the MWC finals, but nearly everything else has gone our way in conference tournaments so far. There are no dark horses winning P5 titles. If Memphis and VCU win tomorrow, there will be no surprise autobid winners in fiddler crab conferences. We really couldn't have asked for a better week than what we have seen. OK, we could have asked for a win over Tennessee, but that would have been a bit of a stretch with a tired team.

I liked (among other things) how UC SD neutralized Leutchen. Leutchen had 5 to 7 inches on everyone UC SD had covering him, and he scored 46 and grabbed 20 rebounds in the two regular season games. Tonight he did diddly squat, especially in the second half. Seriously, UC SD is not a great team by any means, but it is more than a sum of its parts, and that is the measure of a coach. Expect Eric Olen to be somewhere else in April.

So now we just need Memphis and VCU to win tomorrow, and then we wait to see what the committee says. Tennessee beating Florida might also help a little.

No. They didn't, but should have. Deliberate shove to the neck after the whistle. But UC SD up 10 with 2:42 left, so it doesn't matter.

They are going to review that and call a flagrant 1 on the UC Irvine big dude.

Yeah, if his teammates didn't try to feed him with bounce passes.

Beat OU, and we would have clinched a bid and knocked it out of any possibility for a spot. And the other two losses were far worse.

Funniest thing about this game is UC San Diego wearing white while UC Irvine is wearing dark blue. Meanwhile, the UC San Diego coach is wearing dark blue while the UC Irvine coach is wearing white.

I agree with you about that. Five of our losses are against 1 and 2 seeds. But we totally sucked ass against OU, Georgia, and USCe down the stretch. We can only blame ourselves if we miss the tournament. Not that I want us to.

Whether UC San Diego wins this game or not, you have to appreciate how quickly they move the ball on offense. Now up 7 after starting the second half on a 12-3 run. Go Tritons! Eric Olen will undoubtedly be coaching on a bigger stage next year.

That is the problem in judging non P5 teams. They just don't get enough games against P5 teams to get a real feel for their ability. A split on the road against Utah State and San Diego State is really pretty good stuff. The loss to Seattle was totally f'ing ugly, but when you play 25 games against lousy opponents, you are bound to lay an egg once, and in that game Seatlle shot 50% bta. Lord knows we've been guilty of surrendering a 12-2 run in the second half in a conference road game against a team we should beat. And it isn't like we didn't lose by 15 to SEC cellar dweller South Carolina. And that is my complaint about the quad and tournament selection system. A team that plays a huge number of q3 games is deeply penalized for every loss even though one or two are almost invariably bound to happen, while a team that plays a huge number of q1 games is greatly rewarded for every win while every loss is explained away. I mean really, even if Texas deserves to be above UC San Diego for an at large bid, can we necessarily say the same about Indiana, UNC, Xavier, or Boise State? Here's hoping UC San Diego stops committing the silly turnovers and pulls away in the second half, and that will moot this whole debate. It's a 2 point game at the half, so that could happen. Pity Louisville couldn't do a number on Duke today to make UNC look silly. My attitude is that the best of the mid-majors should get the benefit of the doubt and should be given a shot at the big dance. The bottom third of the major-majors had plenty of chances already.

Appreciate you, Bob.

Uh-oh. UC Irvine on a 21-6 run against UC San Diego to take a 25-16 lead. If this hold up, then that could be a major window slamming.

I'm not anti-Lunardi. I'm just anti-quantifying the unquantifiable. And if ESPN thinks it can make me pay for bs like that, it can think again.

Beard doesn't seem to give a s*** about rebounding, judging from his teams' usual numbers, the last two Mississippi teams, and his comments this year after losses.

That's fine. I just wanted to know who was putting up guesstimates of % chance of getting a bid. I think that is so much hedging bets bullshit. Make your selections Sunday morning. Make predictions about who stays in or falls out with a win or a loss in the Sunday games. Don't give me made up %s about the committee selecting you or not, because you don't really know. Me? I don't know who the last team will be, and I don't think anyone can be certain about who it will be. I went with Galaxy Quest earlier today, and I will again. The operation of the digitizer is "much more art than science." And these can be the results: IF, IF, IF UC San Diego wins tonight, and Memphis and VCU win tomorrow, then I think we have a very good chance of being the last team in. I can't think of a team with 7 q1 wins that has ever been left out. But we are on very thin ice. There may be some who refuse to limit the ACC to 3 teams while the SEC gets 14 in. There may be some that think UNC has to stay in because it is UNC. There may be some that can't reward a team that not only finished 6-12 in its conference but didn't win s*** in the OOC and scheduled 7 total turkeys. So, nobody really knows, and in this year there is a lot more guesswork about the last team in the field than in most years. I hope we get in and romp and stomp our way to the title game, but I won't be surprised or really even fussed if we don't. Winning 3 of the last 4 games we were supposed to lose before the Tennessee game was nice, but losing 3 of the last 4 games we were supposed to win sucked balls.

Whose bracketomakitallupology page is this?

Basketball recruiting out of hs was for many years all about college coaches chasing guys for years and going to AAU tournaments throughout the summer to watch players before the fall signing period. That's still a thing, but it isn't nearly the thing it used to be. Smart tracked Coleman from when he was a middle-schooler. He wasn't the only one doing things like that back in the day. But it's a different game now. There are a few splash recruits who can expect to get starting minutes right away, but everyone else coming out of hs has to worry about the team that signs them in November getting the guy in the following April in the portal who will take all the minutes. Then does the 60-150 type recruit stick around to develop and get minutes or go to the highest bidder the next season? And does any school have a lot of confidence it will wind up the beneficiary of its recruits best years? Hunter's best year is this one, and he's at his third school. Tennessee's leading scorer is a transfer from No. Florida, and its starting center was at Ohio State last year. Only two of Alabama's top 7 players in minutes played started their careers at Alabama. There are still 10 guys in the 247sports composite top 150 recruits for 2025 who haven't committed. That is the sign of the times.

Any coach who is willing to let his AD tell him who he needs to hire as an assistant and which style he needs to play is a coach who isn't worth a damn. The coach should coach, and the AD should get the coach the things the coach needs, not tell the coach what to do. Patterson gave a jackassedly stupid ultimatum to Barnes, and Barnes quite rightly told him to stick it. Barnes is now doing quite well in Knoxville, thank you very much, but he became persona non grata around most Texas HS and AAU teams, so he kind of hit a wall here.

Basketball recruiting is now way more about the portal than about getting guys from high school.

Our attention turns to Henderson, Nevada where the Big West tournament finals start at 8:30. Go Tritons!

Closed on a 18-6 run. CSU running clock and chucking rocks at end of shot clock over the last 5 minutes.

Colorado State is winning, but it is winning by a huge margin, so maybe that can knock out a Boise State team that had a q4 loss.

Jermichael Finley. Monster talent whose pro career was derailed by injuries.