NCAAM South Regional Thread (Auburn, ǝʇɐʇS uɐƃᴉɥɔᴉW, ǝʇɐʇS ɐʍoI, W⅋∀ sɐxǝ┴)

Who will win the South?

  • Total voters
    155
  • Poll closed .
Music man55 said:
Watched about 10 minutes of cheats/sdsu game. It was immediately plain to see that the Aztecs are not a very good basketball team. Their offense actually looked worse than Miami or Boston College. And I didn’t see a supposedly very good defense from them either. Ole Miss will be a much better opponent for heels on Friday. Chris Beard always has very tough teams. Cheats were a very bad draw for sdsu. I could actually see the cheats maybe win another game or two if they get the right breaks, as much as it pains me to say. But I think that is their ceiling. (Or the roof?)
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What happened last night was always a possibility.

SDSU had really good wins way back at the start of the season and mixed in some nice MWC wins to barely secure a tourney spot, but they also got swept by UNLV and twice got punched in the mouth by San Jose State before coming back to win.

If SJSU can go 2-for-2 in hitting shots early to take a 17-to-21-point lead, a lot of teams can do that to you.
 
HoKogan said:
We do know that Bubba was on the NCAA selection committee in 2023, when the sheep were in the same predicament and didn't make the field right?
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He wasn't the chair in his final year on the committee then. Not that I'm into conspiracy theories, but ol' boys networks gonna ol' boy...

And that UNC team showing up on the Last Four In / First Four Out graphic during the selection show caught a lot of us by surprise. I was stunned they were so close (the third team out).
 
Carolina for me didn't deserve to get in based on their resume (at some point you have to beat a decent team or two) but they were clearly playing well enough recently that this was a possibility. UNC are not some underdogs here, they are full of talented recruits and portal players who just haven't performed (or more accurately weren't coached properly for most of the season) thus far. Hell, RJ Davis was seen as the NPOY favorite by some outlets in preseason. They absolutely have the talent to make a run. Oh and SDSU is not a very good basketball team that made the field mostly based off of their Houston win in early November.

Their bracket shapes up nicely with an Ole Miss team who has been unimpressive when I've watched them and a hobbled ISU team that I think was lucky to be on the 3 seed line. Would not at all be suprised to see UNC make a S16 or deeper run, although that would probably require them to beat good teams which they haven't done this season. Would have loved to not worry about their devil magic this time of year and just focus on Duke's wonderful season nearing its end.

Only semi-related, but I am curious to see how Hubert does once Davis, the last of Roy's players, leaves. In tougher games, RJ bails Carolina out a lot during poor offensive possessions. Going to need a new centerpiece.
 
bluedevilsenergy said:
Only semi-related, but I am curious to see how Hubert does once Davis, the last of Roy's players, leaves. In tougher games, RJ bails Carolina out a lot during poor offensive possessions. Going to need a new centerpiece.
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I wrote about this sometime last summer. Because Jeremy Roach left and RJ Davis stayed, we got Scheyerball this season -- where Jon Scheyer got to build the first roster that was entirely his -- while Hubertball was forced to wait until 2025-2026.

What is Hubertball? Hard to say just yet. He was certainly aspiring to add a true NBA-style center last offseason, rather than an Armando Bacot-type who can get away with playing that position at the college level. He'll have 6-9 Caleb Wilson next year, who hovers around 200 pounds, so he'll probably pursue more size in the post.

Next year he adds a pair of combo guards, 6-3 Derek Dixon and 6-5 Isaiah Denis. I have the feeling that even if he retains Elliot Cadeau and Seth Trimble, he's going to want to add some size and strength in the backcourt and perimeter, especially if/when Drake Powell declares for the draft.
 
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brevity said:
I wrote about this sometime last summer. Because Jeremy Roach left and RJ Davis stayed, we got Scheyerball this season -- where Jon Scheyer got to build the first roster that was entirely his -- while Hubertball was forced to wait until 2025-2026.

What is Hubertball? Hard to say just yet. He was certainly aspiring to add a true NBA-style center last offseason, rather than an Armando Bacot-type who can get away with playing that position at the college level. He'll have 6-9 Caleb Wilson next year, who hovers around 200 pounds, so he'll probably pursue more size in the post.

Next year he adds a pair of combo guards, 6-3 Derek Dixon and 6-5 Isaiah Denis. I have the feeling that even if he retains Elliot Cadeau and Seth Trimble, he's going to want to add some size and strength in the backcourt and perimeter, especially if/when Drake Powell declares for the draft.
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Brendan Marks has suggested multiple times, including on the DBR Podcast with Jason and Donald (IIRC), that he's expecting a mass exodus from Chapel Hill this spring. Cadeau's mom was vocal with displeasure last year on X/Twitter. It's possible the Cheats turnaround in February and March, coupled with Tanner's hiring, may convince some players to stick around.

Lubin has come on strong of late and he and Cadeau have a strong connection in the P&R.

Denis, Dixon and Trimble are all combo guards, so I could see Cheats throwing a huge bag at Cadeau to return. Otherwise, they'll need to be aggressive in the portal to find a lead guard (and may need to be, regardless of Cadeau's decision). I'm not convinced Cadeau is the solution there – undersized, shaky shooter (34% on low volume, taken while open), fouls a lot (4.1 per 40), and his advanced defensive stats have regressed significantly this year.
 
SkyBrickey said:
According to Torvik, over the last 10 games Ole Miss is playing like the 49th best team and UNC is playing like the 9th best team. Won't be shocked to see another Cheats win.
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Possible... maybe even likely, but one team played 6 Q1 and 4 Q2 games, and the other played 2 Q1, 3 Q2, 4 Q3, and 1 Q4 games. Who you play matters.

If you don't like the Quads, one team played three games against a 1 seed, one against a 2 seed, one against an 8 seed, one against a 9 seed, two against a 10 seed and 2 games against teams that didn't make the tourney. The other team played two games against a 1-seed, one against an 11-seed and 7 games against teams that didn't make the tourney.
 
azzefkram said:
Possible... maybe even likely, but one team played 6 Q1 and 4 Q2 games, and the other played 2 Q1, 3 Q2, 4 Q3, and 1 Q4 games. Who you play matters.

If you don't like the Quads, one team played three games against a 1 seed, one against a 2 seed, one against an 8 seed, one against a 9 seed, two against a 10 seed and 2 games against teams that didn't make the tourney. The other team played two games against a 1-seed, one against an 11-seed and 7 games against teams that didn't make the tourney.
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Actually who you play doesn't matter. Thats why it's adjusted efficiency. :)

But I do agree that many of UNC's opponents would have had a lot less to play for and one of their opponents was missing the NPOY, so that #9 rating is likely inflated. Still, the gap between Ole Miss and UNC over the past 10 games is pretty wide.
 
throatybeard said:
Alla y'all whiny Wadleys, try to look at it this way.

RJ Davis looked like crap against Duke. Just awful. In the game they thought they needed as basically an elimination game, their 11th year All-ACC senior laid a massive egg. Zero threes. Zero. Eight points.

Then, Bubba committed wire fraud for himself, and Carolina's in the NCAAT. Okay. So they play an SDSU team that looked like a quad four team. And only then does RJ shoot 6-6 from three. You could subtract those 18 points and they'd still win, so un-put-together is their opponent, not that UNC's mediocre defense has all that much to do with it.

RJ wasted his best shooting performance of March on that team.

Ole Miss is gonna hyena-slam these twits. And you still went to a University where the AD is a smart AF Black woman who went to Notre Dame and has a law degree from Tulane, instead of a futz named Bubba.
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Great post, Throaty...especially the last paragraph. Here's hoping Jaemyn plays like an NBA All Star against the smurfs and Ole Miss sends 'em back to Hell where they belong.
 
brevity said:
The Franklin Street Institute for the Academically Delinquent reminds me of a different educational edifice with a long-winded name:

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Year's ago, during the scandal, a Duke student had a sign in the student section that was a picture of the Dean Dome overlayed with "The Dean Smith Center for Kids Who Can't Read Good and Want to Learn to Do Other Stuff Good Too". Unfortunately it was taken away from them at some point. Wish I still had the picture.
 
SkyBrickey said:
Actually who you play doesn't matter. Thats why it's adjusted efficiency. :)

But I do agree that many of UNC's opponents would have had a lot less to play for and one of their opponents was missing the NPOY, so that #9 rating is likely inflated. Still, the gap between Ole Miss and UNC over the past 10 games is pretty wide.
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Adjusted efficiency is less efficient over small sample sizes. They are also built with a season's worth of games in mind. Applying it to a ten-game sample (while having more than a skosh of favorable selection bias toward UNC) doesn't strike me as an apples-to-apples comparison.

Small sample size alert. If you look at how both teams performed over their past ten games and against Top-50 competition in that time frame, UNC is 32 (0-2) while Miss is 41 (2-4).

Looking at games against top-50 competition, Miss is 23 (9-11), while UNC is 66 (1-10).

UNC could certainly win, but Miss has performed better in a larger sample size against better competition.
 
azzefkram said:
Adjusted efficiency is less efficient over small sample sizes. They are also built with a season's worth of games in mind. Applying it to a ten-game sample (while having more than a skosh of favorable selection bias toward UNC) doesn't strike me as an apples-to-apples comparison.

Small sample size alert. If you look at how both teams performed over their past ten games and against Top-50 competition in that time frame, UNC is 32 (0-2) while Miss is 41 (2-4).

Looking at games against top-50 competition, Miss is 23 (9-11), while UNC is 66 (1-10).

UNC could certainly win, but Miss has performed better in a larger sample size against better competition.
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So you're arguing against a small sample size by going with an even smaller sample size? Make up your mind, Azz!

What's interesting about the Heels is they made a pretty big lineup change by moving Jackson/Trimnle to the bench, Powell to the 3 and Withers into the starting lineup at the 4. Since that switch to a "two big" lineup, the metrics show a dramatic improvement to a top 20 team (they were playing bad ACC teams before this lineup change too).

I shared this before the ACCT and a lot of posters challenged whether they were actually any better. Now we have the ND, Wake, Duke and SDSU games to further validate it. I hate the Cheats as much as anybody on this board, but you can't deny they are a different team now than they were 2 months ago.
 
SkyBrickey said:
So you're arguing against a small sample size by going with an even smaller sample size? Make up your mind, Azz!

What's interesting about the Heels is they made a pretty big lineup change by moving Jackson/Trimnle to the bench, Powell to the 3 and Withers into the starting lineup at the 4. Since that switch to a "two big" lineup, the metrics show a dramatic improvement to a top 20 team (they were playing bad ACC teams before this lineup change too).

I shared this before the ACCT and a lot of posters challenged whether they were actually any better. Now we have the ND, Wake, Duke and SDSU games to further validate it. I hate the Cheats as much as anybody on this board, but you can't deny they are a different team now than they were 2 months ago.
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You are using ND (137 in the last 10), Wake (97), and SDSU (81) as examples of validation. In the same time frame, Colorado State is four, and Tennessee is 16.

The "two big" lineup can certainly be a factor, but it is just as likely that UNC is looking good against the softest part of its schedule. Toss in that many of their opponents may have been "playing out the string," is it surprising that UNC has looked better?
 
azzefkram said:
You are using ND (137 in the last 10), Wake (97), and SDSU (81) as examples of validation. In the same time frame, Colorado State is four, and Tennessee is 16.

The "two big" lineup can certainly be a factor, but it is just as likely that UNC is looking good against the softest part of its schedule. Toss in that many of their opponents may have been "playing out the string," is it surprising that UNC has looked better?
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UNC has beaten the KP/Torvik predicted spread in 9 out of their last 10 games. They just beat a tourney team by 27 that they were favored to beat by 3.

Yet for some reason you feel the need to argue they aren't actually an improved team. Interesting. Sometimes I enjoy playing the contrarian too, but only if I'm holding a much stronger hand than this one...
 
SkyBrickey said:
UNC has beaten the KP/Torvik predicted spread in 9 out of their last 10 games. They just beat a tourney team by 27 that they were favored to beat by 3.

Yet for some reason you feel the need to argue they aren't actually an improved team. Interesting. Sometimes I enjoy playing the contrarian too, but only if I'm holding a much stronger hand than this one...
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Fine. I will let you get the last word in. ;)
 
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