-- Al Skinner after the UNC game
Al may be right. I am inclined to agree with the Sportz Assassin's assessment: “This is the kind of team that could be a sleeper for the Elite Eight, or could also get run out of the gym in the first round. I think they win one and then are done.”
We will probably be an 8 seed but could fall anywhere from 7 to a 10. We won’t face another ACC team in the first round. We will face a fellow flawed team. 7 through 10s are either uneven teams from major conferences or mid-majors who are probably lacking talent. Here are teams that seem to be in the mix and my initial reaction on who would be a good matchup and who would give us trouble.
Good matchups
Villanova
Syracuse
Xavier
Purdue
Kentucky
USC
Texas Tech
Old Dominion
Gonzaga
VCU
Creighton
Illinois
Drexel
Bad matchups
Arizona
Air Force
Marquette
Indiana
Stanford
Holy Cross
Notre Dame
BYU
Vanderbilt
West Virginia
If we advance, we will face a very high seed in the second round. Here are the ones I would like to see and the ones who would probably run us out of the building.
Good matchups
Ohio State
Wisconsin
Georgetown
Memphis
Bad matchups
Kansas
UCLA
Pitt
Florida
Once we've been slotted feel free to share your thoughts. I will be on a plane and won't be on until late Sunday night.
Posts
18 comments:
Out of curiousity, what was your exact criteria for good/bad matchups? As far as potential second round matchups, I wouldn't mind a big ten team... we could win 49-48.
As far as Memphis, I feel like they would run us out of the building. And although we may match up well style-wise against Georgetown... I don't think that would be a very enjoyable game, and it wouldn't be pleasant having the big east eliminate us for the second year in a row.
Matthew, it was just my gut. For example, I like the Memphis matchup because they haven't played a team of our caliber in months.
All Big 10 teams are good matchups, BYU, Air Force, Holy Cross, WVU are all good matchups in the first round as well as UCLA in the second round. They all do not like to play up-tempo basketball and usually work the clock before shooting. Games against these teams will be low-scoring, which BC needs in order to win. If they can guard the 3 point line against these teams, they should be able to keep the game real close. Any team that is athletic and likes to run, well those are bad matchups which will most likely result in a loss.
Kentucky and Nova' I feel would be bad matchups. I also think that Georgetown would hold us to under 40 points.
It will be a one and done deal for BC. Texas Tech is too athletic for BC. and Bobby Knight vs. Al Skinner. I'd put my money on Bobby. Maybe Skinner can take some notes for next year.
Texas Tech is much like us in that they were very inconsistent this year. It will depends on which team shows up. Either way Georgetown was very impressive and will blow by either team.
Bravesbill, your obsessive hatred of Skinner knows no bounds. And you let it cloud your objectivity. Maybe Tech will take us-- we're struggling. But because of Knight? Sorry if you haven't been paying attention to college hoops for the past two decades, but Knight's teams have been eliminated in the first round at least eight times since 1990. By the way, BC just reached its fourth straight NCAA tournament, a school record.
Texas Tech will win because they are too athletic for BC. They will run circles around them. And if it does come down to coaching, I'd put my money on Bob Knight over Al Skinner any day. Wow, BC made 4 consecutive tournament appearances. Big deal. How many consecutive tournaments did Bobby Knight make at Indiana? What a minute, how many Final 4 appearances and championships does Al Skinner have? Oh yeah, that's right, it's a big, fat zero. It would be pure stupidity to try to argue that Skinner is a better coach than Knight.
bravesbill, I demand that you write an entry of only good things about al skinner, if BC beats TT on thursday.
I'll look forward to it.
I agree with BravesBill about the Skinner vs. Knight matchup. Knight is a proven winner, and in-game adjustments and game management are critical in the tournament.
This entire season, our game management has been horrendous- allowing teams to get out to substancial leads and struggling to fight back in the allotted time.
That being said, I think that Texas Tech is beatable, coaching aside. If Jared can get his touches, and create shots on his own terms, I think Tech will have a hard time stopping him inside. Unlike in the potential second round match-up, Dudley and BC will have the advantage inside. We cannot have our seven footer settling for outside shots... that means Jared and Tyrese are not shooting.
I would absolutely argue that this decade, Skinner's been better than Knight.
My point in bringing up the four straight tourneys for BC is to slowly drive some sense into your fist-clenched, red-faced obsessive hatred of Skinner. By the way, if it's a miracle every time BC wins under Skinner as you claimed earlier this week, Skinner has performed 195 miracles at BC. Better call Pope Benedict, Bittereagle thinks Al's up for sainthood.
Bravesbill, you should stick to BC hockey, it's better for your health :).
Pointing out that BC has made the tournament 4 times in a row is like TOB pointing out the fact that he's won crappy bowl games. The true measure of a basketball coach is how he has done in the NCAA Tournament. Al has gone to the Sweet 16 once in his tenure and has gone no further than that. Also, his career NCAA tournament record is below .500. This is not a indicator of a great coach. Also, I never said that BC beating Miami was a miracle. BC should have absolutely dominated an undermanned and undertalented Miami team. I said it was a miracle that BC came back from 14 points despite Al's coaching performance and I also said that Rice's 3 tying 3 pointer needed divine help to go through the hoop. A good coach would not have barely beaten Miami, let alone spot them a 14 point lead in the second half. A well-coached team would have taken care of business, gotten a big enough lead to send in their reserves. Saying that Al is a great coach because BC beat Miami is ridiculous. Come back to me when they beat a real team.
Nice try- you cannot equate making the NCAA tournament with playing in a bowl game-- for starters, 64 out of 119 teams (53%) in 2007 played in bowl games, while only 65 of 336 D-I teams (19%) qualify for the hoops tournament. Making that figure even more impressive (from BC's standpoint) is the fact that a lot of the 65 are automatic bids granted to teams from little conferences that would be pummeled by teams from the power conferences.
You should call yourself Ignoramuseagle with comments like that.
Making the tourney is much harder and even though this is a "cake and ice cream for everyone" mindset current BC seniors have witnessed a great run in all sports over the last four years.
The comparison to the bowl streak is laughable. I'll bet the number of programs that have made 6 NCAA tourneys this decade is less than ten, so BC's run is quite an accomplishment. Hell, the only other ACC schools on that list are Duke and UNC. And as for tournament success, winning a single game is somewhat of an accomplishment, and BC has done that in every tournament this decade except 2002, when they lost to TJ Ford and higher-seeded Texas. In fact, I saw a stat last year that only 6 programs had won their first-round games in 04, 05 and 06, and BC was on that list as well. So to diminish this achievement in any manner is ridiculous.
I compared crappy bowl game wins to NCAA tournament bids to show the fact that nobody really cares if you win a low-tier bowl if you can't make a decent bowl, much the same way that people don't care if you make the tournament if you do not have any success in it. But if you want to analyze numbers here we go. Way to inflate your numbers there buddy. Instead of taking all 336 teams because we all know most conferences are single bid conferences, why don't we just narrow the focus and just use teams from the BCS conferences. There are 73 BCS conference teams and almost all of the at-large bids go to these teams. 34 BCS conference teams made the tournament out of a possible 73 teams. That correlates to a 46.5%. Basically, 1 out of every 2 teams in a BCS conference are taken every year. This 46.5% rate almost equals the 53% for bowl games, which is not much of a difference. Making the NCAA Tournament might be a little harder, but its basically even. But, if you want to be the ignorant one and inflate your numbers, this still does not preclude the fact that Al Skinner has had 0 success in the tournament. He has a losing record, and has advanced to the Sweet 16 just once in 6 attempts this decade. He has gone no further. My question I would pose to you would be, How many teams this decade have advanced to the Sweet 16 twice or more, and how many different teams have advanced past the Sweet 16? Let's just say there are a lot more teams who have had more success in the tournament than BC. Hell, even Steve Lavin has. Success is not measured by how many times you make the tournament, but by how you perform in the tournament. And BC has not been too stellar in the tournament under Al Skinner.
BC should have blown out Miami but did not because of their coach, yet Gary Williams, a national championship winner, whose team did not lose one of its top three players and was one of the hottest teams in the country, could not even guide Maryland to beat Miami. I'm sure it was all Al's fault BC did not blow out Miami, a team that gave BC a difficult game all three times this season.
If anyone had proposed at the start of Troy Bell's career that BC would get six bids in seven years, win a big east tournament, get to an ACC final and earn one Sweet 16, I would have been overjoyed at that offer and would have taken it in a second. Al Skinner has brought the program to a level it has never enjoyed over a seven year period and I thank him for that. It is clear that he is a good but not great coach, but he also does not enjoy the recruiting advantages that UConn, Duke or UNC are able to exploit. Obviously you are entitled to your opinion, but your opinion is not very fair-minded or logical.
By the way, far more athletic Texas Tech plays almost the exact same tempo as BC, is only marginally more efficient defensively and is clearly less efficient offensively than BC. I look forward to Thursday.
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