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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    Wilmington

    Filling in your brackets / picking upsets

    Ok,, many of us fill out a bracket sheet.
    How many this year will pick Duke as our National Champion ?

    Since about 1990, I've probably picked Duke,, at least 16 times to win the tourney. Also, I've never won a pool.

  2. #2
    There would be a lot more banners in CIS if things held to the way I picked my bracket.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Mebane, NC
    Quote Originally Posted by Rogue View Post
    Ok,, many of us fill out a bracket sheet.
    How many this year will pick Duke as our National Champion ?

    Since about 1990, I've probably picked Duke,, at least 16 times to win the tourney. Also, I've never won a pool.
    I have Duke beating Pitt, and then UNC to get to the title game.

    But I have Louisville beat the Devils in the championship

  4. #4
    Duke loses to Villanova. And if we get by them we will lose to Pitt. Pitt will be the national champion.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Washington, DC area
    I simply cannot pick against Duke. The folks in my pools love that fact, but a fact it remains.

    Duke wins. Every year.

    -jk

  6. #6
    Having watched many games in the BE and having watched WVU beat Villanova like a drum, I think that Duke can beat them and I would not pick against Duke in that game if I were you.

    And having watched the BE and the ACC, I think Duke has as good of a chace as anyone. They win my bracket.
    ~rthomas

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Port Townsend, WA

    A hunch

    Western Kentucky over Illinois AND Gonzaga in the south.

    The Hilltoppers are the new Gonzaga. But they can't hang with the heels...

  8. #8
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Durham, NC
    Quote Originally Posted by Ben63 View Post
    Duke loses to Villanova. And if we get by them we will lose to Pitt. Pitt will be the national champion.
    This seems a popular choice. I don't get it. We score more per game (78 to 76) and allow fewer (65 to 67) and we have a much harder schedule (SOS of 3 vs SOS of 30)

    I say we handle Nova, and give Pitt a game that could go either way.

    EDIT: Hold that, I think that UCLA could bet 'Nova before they even get to us.
    Last edited by Exiled_Devil; 03-16-2009 at 12:11 AM. Reason: UCLA note

  9. Quote Originally Posted by -jk View Post
    I simply cannot pick against Duke. The folks in my pools love that fact, but a fact it remains.

    Duke wins. Every year.

    -jk

    Ditto. I'd rather be wrong 99% of the time picking Duke than be wrong 1% of the time picking someone else and actually having Duke win.

  10. #10
    Join Date
    Nov 2007
    Location
    Raleigh, NC
    Quote Originally Posted by -jk View Post
    I simply cannot pick against Duke. The folks in my pools love that fact, but a fact it remains.

    Duke wins. Every year.

    -jk
    I'm glad I'm not alone here. My bracket is probably about 65% what I want to happen, 25% gut feeling, and 10% based on stats. I rarely win, but I usually do alright, and I have tons of fun pulling for the teams in my bracket.

  11. #11
    Join Date
    Jul 2008
    Location
    San Francisco
    Quote Originally Posted by rthomas View Post
    Having watched many games in the BE and having watched WVU beat Villanova like a drum, I think that Duke can beat them and I would not pick against Duke in that game if I were you.

    And having watched the BE and the ACC, I think Duke has as good of a chace as anyone. They win my bracket.
    I completely agree with regards to Nova. WVU is a dangerous team. They are in Pomeroy's top 10 (www.kenpom.com) and are good on offense and on defense. Quite frankly, I'd rather see Nova. To that end UCLA is also perfectly capable of knocking off Nova and, provided we advance, I would not be surprised to see the bruins lurking in the sweet sixteen in place of the Wildcats.

  12. #12
    I usually participate in 2 pools, and I submit a different bracket for each. Probably about 85% of my picks are the same in each, but I've always picked one with my heart and one with my head. So I always have Duke winning it all in one, while in the other I have the team I truly think will win. Sometimes, that's Duke as well. This year, I think it'll have to be Pittsburgh. This has been my favorite Duke team since at least my freshman year, which was 2005 (when we were picked to finish 5th in the ACC preseason and ended up a 1 seed in the tournament, and had the unforgettable 71-70 win over UNC at home). However, I'm just not sure it's our year. If G stays, I believe next year is our year.

  13. #13
    Join Date
    Mar 2008
    Location
    New Orleans, Louisiana

    DBR Group?

    Don't know if this is worth creating a new thread yet, but is there going to be a DBR group in the ESPN Tournament Challenge like last year? I did really well picking Kansas/Memphis then, and can probably go nowhere but down.

  14. #14
    Join Date
    Feb 2007

    Teams That Win Their Conference Championships

    I do not have stats to back this up but it is only from memory. Teams that are not suppose to win their conference championships but surprisingly do ,usually do not fare well in the tournament.

    It this is true than Temple, Miss.St, and USC might be early round exists.

    This does include Duke, Purdue or Missouri who were not surprise winners of their conference tournaments even though they were not number 1 seeds.

  15. #15
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    Wilmington
    Quote Originally Posted by Acymetric View Post
    I'm glad I'm not alone here. My bracket is probably about 65% what I want to happen, 25% gut feeling, and 10% based on stats. I rarely win, but I usually do alright, and I have tons of fun pulling for the teams in my bracket.
    It's nice to know, I'm NORMAL in picking Duke to win it ALL, and knowing I won't win the pool in doing so lol.

    When do most of you pick unc-ch to exit this year ??in Greensboro or Memphis ?

  16. #16
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    NC
    Quote Originally Posted by NYC Duke Fan View Post
    I do not have stats to back this up but it is only from memory. Teams that are not suppose to win their conference championships but surprisingly do ,usually do not fare well in the tournament.

    It this is true than Temple, Miss.St, and USC might be early round exists.

    This does include Duke, Purdue or Missouri who were not surprise winners of their conference tournaments even though they were not number 1 seeds.
    Teams that surprisingly win their conference tournaments should not be expected to do very well in the NCAAs. Simply by the fact that they weren't supposed to win, we can infer that there are better teams in their conference (based on the regular season). The regular season should be a better predictor of NCAA tournament success than conference tournaments, as there is a lot more information. So a weaker/bad team that gets hot/lucky and wins their tournament should, on average, return to their weaker/bad form and do poorly in the NCAA tournament.

    To go a bit further, teams that surprisingly win their tournaments are much more likely to be higher (i.e. worse) seeds in the tournament. Thus, they're likely to be underdogs even in the first game. For example, the teams you listed (Temple, Miss St, and USC) are are all double-digit seeds. They will be expected to lose in the first round. And if they happen to pull an upset in the first round, they will be heavily expected to lose in the second round.

  17. #17
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    Orange County, NC
    Quote Originally Posted by NYC Duke Fan View Post
    I do not have stats to back this up but it is only from memory. Teams that are not suppose to win their conference championships but surprisingly do ,usually do not fare well in the tournament.

    It this is true than Temple, Miss.St, and USC might be early round exists.

    This does include Duke, Purdue or Missouri who were not surprise winners of their conference tournaments even though they were not number 1 seeds.
    As soon as I read this thread title I thought of Carmelo and Syracuse.

  18. #18
    Join Date
    Feb 2007
    Location
    North Florida & Bozeman, Montana

    Lightbulb Since the NCAA expanded the tourney to 64 teams in 1985, only 11 ...

    Quote Originally Posted by NYC Duke Fan View Post
    I do not have stats to back this up but it is only from memory. Teams that are not suppose to win their conference championships but surprisingly do ,usually do not fare well in the tournament.

    It this is true than Temple, Miss.St, and USC might be early round exists.

    This does include Duke, Purdue or Missouri who were not surprise winners of their conference tournaments even though they were not number 1 seeds.
    of 24 NCs won their conference tourney in the same year.
    Four of the NCs came from conferences that did not have a conference tourney.

    http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/sp...onference.html

    Best regards--Blueprofessor

  19. #19
    I pick Duke every year. This year will be no different. 1995 was a long time ago, but I believe I went on strike and did not complete a bracket. In 1996, we were an 8 seed and I still had us going all the way. Unfortunately, when your champion loses in the first round, you aren't going to do very well.

  20. #20
    Join Date
    Feb 2007

    The Upsets Thread

    What do you guys have for Cinderellas/upsets in your bracket?

    Maybe some categories are needed:
    - Biggest 1st round upset?
    - Lowest seeded team in the Sweet 16?
    - Lowest seeded team in the Elite 8?
    - Surprise Final Four team?
    - Upset you don't have the guts to pick but really, really want to?
    - Upset that's not really an upset?
    - Anything else you can think of


    I recommend choosing lots of upsets for your bracket this year. Don't get suckered into picking chalk just because four #1 seeds made it to the Final Four last season in an unusually strong year for college basketball. There's a lot more parity this year and I expect a wild tournament.

    If you want some objective data for this opinion, check out Pomeroy: http://kenpom.com/stats.php Compare the ratings for the top teams this season to the tops teams in seasons past. 2009 looks a lot like 2006. Even if you disagree with a specific team's rating (I think UNC is a better team than Memphis, for example), odds are, Pomeroy does a good job capturing the strength (or lack thereof) of the overall field.

    Now, obviously, the odds of you picking the right upsets are pretty low. That's the nature of the beast. But at least you'll stand a chance of getting lucky, picking correctly, and winning your office pool with an upset-minded approach. Meanwhile, the chalk-filled brackets are going to get blown up, imo -- you don't stand any less of a chance going for upsets as you would going for chalk. Like I said, I'm expecting a wild tournament.

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