<p>I thought that a NCAA thread would be appropriate and of interest considering the extremely long football thread.</p>
<p>So what do you all think? What conference/schools are overperforming/underperforming? What games are you looking forward to? Any March Madness predictions?</p>
<p>Out of all the conferences, I would say that the Pac-10 is having the best year. UCLA is my predicted tournament winner, and should definitely be in the Final Four </p>
<p>The Big East has its usual 7-8 teams that will probably make the tournament. A lot of its teams seemed to be off to really great starts, but have had a few stumbles this year leaving only Georgetown as a possible 2 or 1 seed.</p>
<p>ACC has the 2 and 3 teams, but beyond that performance is inconsistent for this conference. I wonder if the game the other night would have gone differently had Ty Lawson still been in.</p>
<p>SEC is having a very off-year. A couple of years ago it would have been hard to fathom that its top two teams are from Tennessee.</p>
<p>Big Ten is doing as usual with Indiana, Michigan State (minus the Iowa game), and Wisconsin as legit Final Four contenders.</p>
<p>Big 12 is basically ruled by KU, but KSU seems to be learning how to use Michael Beasley properly and should make a decent tourney run.</p>
<p>Outside of that, only the Atlantic-10 has a conference that is going to have more than 2 tournament bids. Xavier is having an awesome year, Dayton's would be more awesome if two of its starters weren't out, and St. Joe's, UMass, URI, and Charlotte all have decent shots at making the tournament.</p>
<p>Memphis is the only other team with a legit Final Four shot, with Gonzaga, Saint Mary's, and Drake likely going Sweet 16.</p>
<p>The biggest thing I've noticed this year is how much the sport is dominated by freshmen. Kevin Love, Michael Beasley, O.J. Mayo, and Eric Gordon are dominating.</p>
<p>sounds like Kevin Durant and Greg Oden last year. KU will choke again like they always do, they'll win 1 or 2 games in the tournament, then fire bill self because they finally realize he cant coach. Duke is great, but they seemingly live and die by the three... good thing theyre good at it though. And Carolina would still have lost the game, albeit it would have been much closer. I'm really interested to see if Memphis can go into the tournament and dominate against opponents that actually play in real conferences. Memphis is a mystery to me, I know they are definitely a top 5 team, but i'm not sure if theyre capable of winning the whole thing.</p>
<p>Pac-10 is easily the best conference this year.</p>
<p>UCLA, Stanford, Washington State should all have great runs in the tourney.</p>
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Big Ten is doing as usual with Indiana, Michigan State (minus the Iowa game), and Wisconsin as legit Final Four contenders.
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</p>
<p>You're kidding, right?</p>
<p>Right now Purdue is leading the Big 10, which pretty much only goes to show how bad the Big 10 really is. Michigan State is the ONLY team that can really be considered in the tournament simply because of how great a tournament coach Tom Izzo is. My buddy said this earlier today and I agree with him that Michigan State will be the only Big 10 team that makes it past the second round in the tournament this year.</p>
<p>I actually am really starting to like Kansas State for a tournament run. If Carmelo Anthony taught us anything, its that it only takes one and a half really good players to win it all and with Beasley and Walker they have one phenomenal and one pretty good player. Wouldn't surprise me to see them make a deep tournament run.</p>
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Michigan State will be the only Big 10 team that makes it past the second round in the tournament this year.
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</p>
<p>just second round? i would say 4 or 5 big 10 teams makes the tournament. Michigan state and indiana can go very deep.</p>
<p>Indiana is going to win the whole thing. Go Hoosiers!!!!</p>
<p>SoCal, is that with or without all their players? Head coach is done; players threatening to walk..</p>
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KU will choke again like they always do, they'll win 1 or 2 games in the tournament, then fire bill self because they finally realize he cant coach.
[/quote]
bump it up.</p>
<p>oregon will win it all...have you fdxhfgxhfgj it? i know!</p>