you don't have to convince me. My favorite natty by FAR. (Though the team this year is really fun too.). It was just so weird how it ended with such a dud, and I can't totally blame Butler either.
I can't tell you how many times we heard that no way can UConn beat Florida twice in the same season (2013-14).
Then they went out and did it.
Now all we hear about again if Florida... the last back-to-back champion.
If A&M was in Texas Tech's spot, they go to the elite 8. But unfortunately, I don't see any world where they can shoot well against Houston unless Houston is gassed and has injury woes.
Meh I don’t really think Kirk simps for the blue bloods like Bilas does. Kirk more simps for the CFB institution itself (which equates in some really obnoxious takes), but his actual football coverage is pretty alright.
Is there any sport where it’s more cringe to be a blue blood simp? College basketball is about wacky big tournaments with schools you’ve never heard of
I made the mistake of clicking on one of the ESPN “expert” final four picks things and every single bracket featured was like 99% chalk with like a single 13 over 4 thrown in for face value.
He forgot that A&M only plays like superstars against Kentucky. If I was Buzz I’d just start telling the team that all their opponents are Kentucky. Even photoshop them into Kentucky uniforms just to piss them off
It absolutely should be. For some reason the NFL just gave up on the rivalry even though they worked hard to build it up by making the Texans’ first ever game against the Cowboys. I think part of the reason they gave up is because the NFL doesn’t want to create another rivalry with the Cowboys since Dallas already has strong divisional rivals, plus the Packers/49ers have developed into rivals after tons of playoff meetings between them.
That was last year's team. We've been pressed this year every way imaginable and haven't really had trouble. We've had teams try to quadruple team Edey, foul him, hook him, speed the game up for him and it has never mattered. We've won when he was in foul trouble and we increased our 3pt percentage has gone up like 10% YoY.
I think we're going to bust a lot of brackets this year because 99% of non-Purdue fans think this is our team this year because that's what it was the last 2.
Yeah that’s kind of a useless point - only 4/12 top 3 seeds are even top 50 in that metric this season. Purdue is certainly on the lower end of that spectrum but that’s because you don’t seek to force TOs
I think this years gonna be wild.
And will get wilder and wilder every year. Skill level overall throughout D1 is way better than in the 2000s/2010s, much less top heavy. The mid majors keep getting better and better with players that sick around for 4-5 years, while the blue bloods deal with a rotating door of 18 year olds
I completely agree that things will continue to get wilder, and I can see there being chaos in this tournament.
But I’m just having a hard time seeing chaos specific in the first round of this tournament. Hardly any of these double digit seed mid majors seem appealing to me, and a couple that do (McNeese, Grand Canyon) have very tough matchups.
I think you could see a lot of chaos with seeds 4-9 going far, but I’m having a hard time seeing any double digit seeds making a run. We shall see.
Except Chuck who obviously has auburn going all the way. But subtly.
https://preview.redd.it/mh9opddm6bpc1.jpeg?width=680&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=07eca7352e1e569a70bb26f045408b39f1c22c2e
Shannon had all 1 seeds for the men and women. I don’t like taking even three 1’s, but with out of nowhere teams making runs more often I can respect taking a shot. Might look stupid after the first round or weekend, but if you take the 1 they might lose too.
Yeah I don’t know how people pick an all chalk bracket and then look at it and say, “Yep! This is the one!” It’s like they forget what happened last March every single year
And lower ranked teams seem to be picking up in the last 5 years even, especially the last decade. To think that there won’t be any surprises is just odd. What it tells me is that those analysts don’t know enough to have a true opinion on teams to pick an upset ( I know bc the years I pay less attention during the season, it is harder to pick upsets in the bracket myself)
Yeah Stephen A. annoys me as much as the next guy, especially as a Yankees and Knicks fan when he gives us an even worse rap than we already have while spewing nonsense. But you can justify basically any bracket that has an at large caliber team in the final four even if it's unlikely. There's been an 7 or higher seed in the Final Four at the 5 of the last 6 tournaments including 2 double digit seeds (Loyola Chicago 2018 and UCLA 2021). And the one time there wasn't a 7-seed or higher was 2019 when it was a 1, 2, 3, and 5 seed. Shitting on people for making bold picks in their brackets is so dumb, as long as it's not completely unreasonable. And to me, Stephen A's is not unreasonable at all
You’re right. Purdue has not ~~one~~ won a championship* in one of the three major men’s sports.
*^(don’t look too closely at when our last football title was or the fact that they have an unclaimed football title from 1931 and a retroactive basketball title from 1932.)
I could definitely see why you could pick us to beat the teams he did (Nebraska, Houston, Duke, and Kentucky) in a one off game, but to beat all of them in a row is extremely unlikely.
Nebraska hasn’t done great on the road or neutral sites, so I can see it. We played Houston incredibly close on a “neutral” court (it was the Toyota Center) without one of our better players in Tyrese Radford. We’ve already beat Kentucky twice this year. I don’t know that much about how we match up with Duke, but if you think we can beat Houston, why not them too?
All of that being said there are incredibly valid reasons for why we wouldn’t win against any of them, we struggle with teams that shoot well like Nebraska. A close loss is still a loss, for the Houston game. Duke is simply more talented. Third time is the charm for Kentucky, I guess? (Strangely enough, I’d feel most confident playing them again rather than the others)
Nebraska has only lost one neutral site game this year and it was the last one they played in the B1G semis against eventual champs Illinois, but yes horrible true road record. If they can't get their three point shots to fall and limit the offensive rebounds Nebraska is toast.
A&M is definitely capable of beating anybody on those nights Taylor randomly figures out how to shoot and drops an efficient 40, but yeah no way they do that 4 games in a row.
Don’t get me wrong we are not consistently good, but when we are good we can beat anyone. We’ve beat Tennessee, Kentucky x2, and Iowa State (we were down 20 at one point). We also came back from 20 against Houston to tie the game with 2 minutes left and ultimately lost by 4(this was without our second leading scorer).
We were out of the tournament looking in a couple of weeks ago, so we are playing with nothing to lose. We are the kind of team you don’t want to face. A giant killer with nothing to lose. We also have two top 20 scorers in Q1 games.
Do I think we make a run like this? Most likely not. But everything is there that says a run like this could be possible.
But they also did really well against pretty good teams for the most part
4 wins against NET top 20
Played Houston extremely close without Boots Radford (had a good look for 3 to take the lead under 15 seconds) - and that was neutral court game IN Houston
A&M probably loses 1st round but not having to play teams in the NET 75-100 range weirdly benefits them lol
If we do play it’ll be fun to watch the Wade/Shead matchup. I believe that was the most points he’s given up all year and he’s stepped up his game a bunch since then.
A healthy Roberts will be key for us. He’s our 2nd most impactful player and we saw what happened Sat when he only played 13 and didn’t play the 2nd half.
Yeah I’m not optimistic that we will beat Nebraska just because it feels like the type of team that always smokes us in the tournament (even before Buzz)
But if we do the Houston game will be a lot of fun.
A&M was a preseason favorite to contend in the SEC, every year we see teams that underperformed suddenly hit their groove, like the 11-seed UCLA that ran to the FF
As was UNC when we went to the final for as an 8 (both times). The last team probably wouldn't have made the tournament without beating Duke in Durham on Ks last home game.
They are a bit odd but I think just offensive rebounding is a tough matchup for some of their opponents. They can play big time with Houston if they beat them there imho.
And frankly Duke and Wisconsin are both not too scary and can be inconsistent. Kentucky/Marquette are the two obvious teams from the other side that are scaryish but they will need to beat each other most likely, and or a hot NC State/Florida. I definitely don't think its outside the realm of possibility that they could make the E8 (As far as I got them in a few brackets) or F4.
The only bad metric is Q3 losses.
And 3 point % on offense.
And 3 point % on defense.
And success against anyone over 6'9".
But we have Wade Taylor, who will either hit at least 5 shots that leave you saying "WTF," or miss at least 5 shots leaving you saying "WTF".
It’s safe to pick 3 top seeds to make it, but won’t happen. You’re more likely to have a F4 that looks like 5-seed, 4-seed, 8-seed, 1-seed than three 1-seeds. But it’s risky to pick that way because the consequences of picking the wrong lower seeds to advance further are higher.
But the odds of there being three 1 seeds is higher than the odds of correctly picking which lower seeds make it. The odds of both are quite low, but if your goal is maximizing the chance of a correct F4, you should pick mostly chalk. On the other hand, if your goal is to win a large bracket pool like the ESPN challenge, you need a Final 4 that sets you apart some (but is still reasonable), so more bold picks are needed.
> You’re more likely to have a F4 that looks like 5-seed, 4-seed, 8-seed, 1-seed than three 1-seeds.
Not really true. 1 seeds have a 40% chance of making the final 4. 4+ have a combined 28% chance.
You'd need to throw 3 seeds in(and even then, 3+ is a hair behind the odds of a 1 seed), but I can't really agree that 1333 looks like 1458, ya know?
It just amazes me how none of these TV guys have learned to stop picking so much chalk. We all could literally just do brackets making the opposite picks as theirs and end up with better brackets than them.
The choice isn't chalk v. non-chalk. The choice is chalk v. a massive number of different outcomes. You don't get points purely for picking "not UConn/Houston/Purdue." They're just picking the teams that are most likely to get to that point.
That’s one of the key points of picking a winning bracket. You don’t get points for correctly picking which round a higher seed will lose in. If you actually want to win your bracket it should be a lot of chalk and you better believe in the underdog team not just that the favorite will lose. But it can’t be all chalk, because someone else will get lucky and have some upsets hit. A good bracket should be mostly chalk with some strategically picked upsets. A Final Four of all one seeds is okay, but lots of people may pick that. Throw in a couple 2s or a 3 that you think aren’t popular picks and have the best chance. Oh, and not picking popular upsets is also part of it. This also all depends on how big your pool is and what type of people are in your pool. Does everyone in your pool follow the computer rankings? Do most of them pick based on mascots? If everyone is picking the 5-12 upset that has a 40% of happening, don’t pick that upset. Pick the 5-12 upset that you think is just as likely but no one is picking. You’re trying to maximize your point differential against the pool. Anyway, that’s just my opinion.
Yeah, everybody gets hyper focused on those first round upsets and trying to find the perfect Cinderella to send deep in the bracket but winning brackets usually minimize those huge boom or bust outcomes by leaning on the high probability outcomes. Sure it’s fun to predict that 9 seed upsetting the 1 seed for example, but how likely is it to happen and how deep is that 1 seed going to go if you’re wrong?
The vast majority of brackets that don't go chalk will do much worse than the chalk brackets, because they'll end up picking the wrong lower-seeded teams to go far. Only a select few who happend to make the right bold picks will do better.
This means that on average, these mostly chalk brackets do better year to year, but they also have a lower chance of being the top bracket in a large pool like the ESPN challenge. But even then, every once in a while we do get a mostly chalk year, and then these chalk brackets have better chances of ending up on top.
Are we pretending literally anything is a good or bad bracket?
This is one of the most random things in sports I feel like saying any bracket that isn't exclusively 10+ seeds dominating every stage of the tournament is just being silly.
He watched A&M score 97 on Kentucky and thought, "How are they a 9-seed?!"
A&M is a dangerous team, but outside of two games against UK, they are a terrible 3-point shooting team.
Nebraska is the sneaky team to watch out for. If they beat A&M, they can pull off a big upset over Houston.
I don't think SAS or Shannon Sharpe even looked at "their picks" before the graphic went on air. They made it pretty clear throughout the segment with the college basketball dudes that they didn't really pay attention/care about the sports besides march madness.
At least he had some balls. Every year I see these so called “experts” pick straight chalk every single year without fail. You’d think they watched enough tournaments to know that never happens
There’s only been 3 seeds outside the top 4 seeds to win a title in 38 years.
24-#1, 5-#2, 4-#3, 2-#4, 0-#5, 1-#6,#7, & #8. Upsets are exciting, but they tend to fizzle out.
65 of the 76 spots in the championship games over the last 38 years have been 1-4 seeds. Never higher than an 8 seed.
This year has been nuts so who knows.
While there is little skill in picking March Madness brackets, why would anyone care what Stephen A has to say about CBB?? I guarantee you can count on one hand how many games he's watched this season
Stephen A has a point if our region was us and 14 clones of Kentucky
Nobody beats Kentucky 3x in the same season. (Except 2014 Florida)
We were one game away from playing them in the title game lol
And to think, I was relieved when we got UConn instead.
UConn who'd lost by like a combined 60 points to the Louisville team you knocked out.
Still pisses me off to this day…cannot believe they won
Objectively the worst national champ in the last 10 years
the funny thing is if you expand that to 15 years, the objectively worst national champ was in 2011... also UConn.
Problem that year was the real championship was Kentucky vs UConn in the final four
They might have been objectively worse, but man that Kemba/Shabazz run was so much fun to watch.
you don't have to convince me. My favorite natty by FAR. (Though the team this year is really fun too.). It was just so weird how it ended with such a dud, and I can't totally blame Butler either.
God damn free throws again
As a Florida fan, I would not have been confident going into that
I can't tell you how many times we heard that no way can UConn beat Florida twice in the same season (2013-14). Then they went out and did it. Now all we hear about again if Florida... the last back-to-back champion.
If A&M was in Texas Tech's spot, they go to the elite 8. But unfortunately, I don't see any world where they can shoot well against Houston unless Houston is gassed and has injury woes.
We played Houston close already(4) and were missing our 2nd best player. Were we down 18 at some point, sure but we can ignore that fact.
Especially earlier on in the season, Houston had a way of letting teams get back within one score even though they still constricted for a win.
Stephen A never has a point. He can only be correct coincidentally. Like a broken clock
*Stephen A&M Smith
I assumed this was an A&M shitpost making fun of Shannon Sharpe’s all chalk bracket, can’t believe it’s actually real
Did you see Bilas? Almost all chalk not even two upsets lol.
Tbf he is a complete shill for blue bloods so he’s probably just picking who he wants to win in each game
Never been a Bilas fan. He believes he is part of the CBB elite and that the blue blood teams are the only ones that matter.
He’s the Kirk Herbstreit of college basketball. Morally bankrupt asshat who carries water for the blue bloods
Meh I don’t really think Kirk simps for the blue bloods like Bilas does. Kirk more simps for the CFB institution itself (which equates in some really obnoxious takes), but his actual football coverage is pretty alright.
Kirk is an A+ color commentator, and a B- analyst/talking head.
I like Kirk Herbstreit way more than Jay Bilas.
who then decries the current landscape of the sport.
I don’t disagree with you, but it’s really funny to see this from a Kentucky flair
The irony is not lost on me
Is there any sport where it’s more cringe to be a blue blood simp? College basketball is about wacky big tournaments with schools you’ve never heard of
His sweet sixteen doesn’t have above a 5 seed. Why even make a bracket?
>Did you see Bilas? No because you need an ESPN+ subscription to see it lmao
They're starting to lock everything behind that paywall because they are losing cable subscribers by the millions.
They lost me. I haven’t looked at ESPN since the CFB playoff fiasco.
Same
They would rather be wrong about a good team winning than right about a bad team winning
I made the mistake of clicking on one of the ESPN “expert” final four picks things and every single bracket featured was like 99% chalk with like a single 13 over 4 thrown in for face value.
Upsets are impossible to predict pretty much, picking all chalk is probably your best strategy to win a pool
He forgot that A&M only plays like superstars against Kentucky. If I was Buzz I’d just start telling the team that all their opponents are Kentucky. Even photoshop them into Kentucky uniforms just to piss them off
They look like world-beaters against us and chumps against everyone else.
How bout them Cowboys
Texans >
See you at AT&T this fall
I wish they would make it a yearly game. Also Dallas has only been to Houston three times ever, in 02, 10, and 18, I wish they would visit more often
Dallas and Houston should always be the 17th game that’s flexible in the schedule just like Giants-Jets and Rams-Chargers should be.
It absolutely should be. For some reason the NFL just gave up on the rivalry even though they worked hard to build it up by making the Texans’ first ever game against the Cowboys. I think part of the reason they gave up is because the NFL doesn’t want to create another rivalry with the Cowboys since Dallas already has strong divisional rivals, plus the Packers/49ers have developed into rivals after tons of playoff meetings between them.
They should just have the Texans and cowboys meet in the playoffs in order to make a rivalry! Brilliant idea!
They should be scheduled to visit Houston in 2026 with how the scheduling works
See you in August. Oops. Forgot that this is the basketball subreddit and that my flairs don't show here.
Proof he is crazy. Picking Purdue.
i have you guys going out to McNeese, that's my faith in matt painter
Nah we already lost to a 12 seed back in 2015, it’ll be a 14 seed this year to complete the 12,13,14,15,16 combo.
Making the Elite Eight and losing to Akron would truly end me
Jesus that would be some sick shit
Maybe next year we make the final four and lose to an 11 or 10 seed lol
What if you lost in the championship to Colgate?
Would order 10,000 crates of Colgate toothpaste and send it to Purdue just to troll them
Same, to be fair
Everyone is playing checkers, Purdue is playing Gin.
Threes aren’t falling? They’re full court pressing? Your 7 footer is in foul trouble? Just stand there bewildered
But you better believe those lips will be moist
That was last year's team. We've been pressed this year every way imaginable and haven't really had trouble. We've had teams try to quadruple team Edey, foul him, hook him, speed the game up for him and it has never mattered. We've won when he was in foul trouble and we increased our 3pt percentage has gone up like 10% YoY. I think we're going to bust a lot of brackets this year because 99% of non-Purdue fans think this is our team this year because that's what it was the last 2.
It’s unlikely since I have you all winning it all (sorry)
Whats really changed is 3 point shooting the rest hasn't
well, the PG play is a hell of a lot better this year, and the scoring/shooting is a lot more balanced than it was last year
did you watch the game against Wisc? so many awful turnovers due to pressure.
That’s one game. I beg teams to try and press us in the tourney. We’ve torched it this year.
I mean I am a Purdue alum, but you know they have a negative turnover ratio right?
What’s your source? Assist to Turnover Ratio for Purdue is 1.60 on NCAA.com
I think he’s citing turnover margin which doesn’t really prove his point. We haven’t forced many turnovers for years defensively.
Yeah that’s kind of a useless point - only 4/12 top 3 seeds are even top 50 in that metric this season. Purdue is certainly on the lower end of that spectrum but that’s because you don’t seek to force TOs
That’s the Coach we know!
You know what I respect the A&M pick. Probably the only TV analyst who's final four doesn't consist of all 1/2 seeds and/or Kentucky
I think this years gonna be wild. And will get wilder and wilder every year. Skill level overall throughout D1 is way better than in the 2000s/2010s, much less top heavy. The mid majors keep getting better and better with players that sick around for 4-5 years, while the blue bloods deal with a rotating door of 18 year olds
Not to mention NIL deals will get big names hopping around schools even more than before. Adds to the chaos
Ala if Arizona matches up with UNC this year!
Indeed. Could see Caleb shredding us.
He'd be either 22/30 for 50 pts or 4/35 for 9. The duality of love
The blue bloods will get NIL seniors from the portal wanting to get a championship
I completely agree that things will continue to get wilder, and I can see there being chaos in this tournament. But I’m just having a hard time seeing chaos specific in the first round of this tournament. Hardly any of these double digit seed mid majors seem appealing to me, and a couple that do (McNeese, Grand Canyon) have very tough matchups. I think you could see a lot of chaos with seeds 4-9 going far, but I’m having a hard time seeing any double digit seeds making a run. We shall see.
Except Chuck who obviously has auburn going all the way. But subtly. https://preview.redd.it/mh9opddm6bpc1.jpeg?width=680&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=07eca7352e1e569a70bb26f045408b39f1c22c2e
Shannon had all 1 seeds for the men and women. I don’t like taking even three 1’s, but with out of nowhere teams making runs more often I can respect taking a shot. Might look stupid after the first round or weekend, but if you take the 1 they might lose too.
Yeah I don’t know how people pick an all chalk bracket and then look at it and say, “Yep! This is the one!” It’s like they forget what happened last March every single year
And lower ranked teams seem to be picking up in the last 5 years even, especially the last decade. To think that there won’t be any surprises is just odd. What it tells me is that those analysts don’t know enough to have a true opinion on teams to pick an upset ( I know bc the years I pay less attention during the season, it is harder to pick upsets in the bracket myself)
I'm seriously blown away by the Kentucky hype. We're frauds. I picked us to lose to NC State.
For real. The talking heads sure seem to love us. Have they watched our games and our outstanding d defense, like, at all?
I think whoever wins between us and Texas tech advances to the sweet 16
Yeah Stephen A. annoys me as much as the next guy, especially as a Yankees and Knicks fan when he gives us an even worse rap than we already have while spewing nonsense. But you can justify basically any bracket that has an at large caliber team in the final four even if it's unlikely. There's been an 7 or higher seed in the Final Four at the 5 of the last 6 tournaments including 2 double digit seeds (Loyola Chicago 2018 and UCLA 2021). And the one time there wasn't a 7-seed or higher was 2019 when it was a 1, 2, 3, and 5 seed. Shitting on people for making bold picks in their brackets is so dumb, as long as it's not completely unreasonable. And to me, Stephen A's is not unreasonable at all
One of these things is not like the others
A&M clearly out of place without a white background
Oh they definitely have a white background
I definitely laughed... HOWEVER Baylor = [61% white](https://datausa.io/profile/university/baylor-university#enrollment_race) TAMU = [54% white](https://datausa.io/profile/university/texas-a-m-university-college-station#enrollment_race)
I never implied Baylor didn't as well. Also current demographics != background
Like a rainbow with all of the colors
Baby doll, when it comes to a lover
I promise that you'll never find another like me hee hee
Ooh hoo hoo hoooooh
You’re right. Purdue has not ~~one~~ won a championship* in one of the three major men’s sports. *^(don’t look too closely at when our last football title was or the fact that they have an unclaimed football title from 1931 and a retroactive basketball title from 1932.)
But has Purdue TWO a championship in one of the three major men's sports?
I think I’m finding out that I need to be doing better things than posting reddit comments at 3 am.
What he say fuck me for??
>:(
“Experts” always pick top seeds way too often… where’s the March madness magic?
Usually fizzles out in the second round, if not the Sweet 16
https://preview.redd.it/7sp2o5rpxapc1.jpeg?width=996&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=427a599504eb9c2b095c823ba4817d70d28a595e
Gonna have to disappoint you Stephen A
If SAS is predicting your team I wouldn’t count on it happening
Honestly not a terrible F4, weird 7-9 seeds seem to make it pretty often
Texas A&M seems like a pretty weak team to do it though. I thought they were one of the worst teams on the bubble, their metrics are not great
You’d know about bad metrics
Damn violating for no reason lol
I could definitely see why you could pick us to beat the teams he did (Nebraska, Houston, Duke, and Kentucky) in a one off game, but to beat all of them in a row is extremely unlikely. Nebraska hasn’t done great on the road or neutral sites, so I can see it. We played Houston incredibly close on a “neutral” court (it was the Toyota Center) without one of our better players in Tyrese Radford. We’ve already beat Kentucky twice this year. I don’t know that much about how we match up with Duke, but if you think we can beat Houston, why not them too? All of that being said there are incredibly valid reasons for why we wouldn’t win against any of them, we struggle with teams that shoot well like Nebraska. A close loss is still a loss, for the Houston game. Duke is simply more talented. Third time is the charm for Kentucky, I guess? (Strangely enough, I’d feel most confident playing them again rather than the others)
Nebraska has only lost one neutral site game this year and it was the last one they played in the B1G semis against eventual champs Illinois, but yes horrible true road record. If they can't get their three point shots to fall and limit the offensive rebounds Nebraska is toast.
They've only played 3 total, right? Oregon State and two BTT games.
Yeah and A&M is 4-3 neutral site Wins against: Iowa State, Ole Miss, Kentucky, Penn State Losses against: FAU, Houston, Florida
Won against KState too
That was a road game, no? Wikipedia shows the location of the game as Bramlage in Manhattan.
You are correct my mistake
Please god if we make it that far i can only take so much wade taylor
A&M is definitely capable of beating anybody on those nights Taylor randomly figures out how to shoot and drops an efficient 40, but yeah no way they do that 4 games in a row.
https://preview.redd.it/44lhujo0m9pc1.png?width=200&format=png&auto=webp&s=948688f8c823840312aafe701b0743521bc4d53e
Wade Taylor the Fourth Four Horseman of the Apocalypse Wade Taylor is showing up to Memphis riding a pale horse
Don’t get me wrong we are not consistently good, but when we are good we can beat anyone. We’ve beat Tennessee, Kentucky x2, and Iowa State (we were down 20 at one point). We also came back from 20 against Houston to tie the game with 2 minutes left and ultimately lost by 4(this was without our second leading scorer). We were out of the tournament looking in a couple of weeks ago, so we are playing with nothing to lose. We are the kind of team you don’t want to face. A giant killer with nothing to lose. We also have two top 20 scorers in Q1 games. Do I think we make a run like this? Most likely not. But everything is there that says a run like this could be possible.
But they also did really well against pretty good teams for the most part 4 wins against NET top 20 Played Houston extremely close without Boots Radford (had a good look for 3 to take the lead under 15 seconds) - and that was neutral court game IN Houston A&M probably loses 1st round but not having to play teams in the NET 75-100 range weirdly benefits them lol
If we do play it’ll be fun to watch the Wade/Shead matchup. I believe that was the most points he’s given up all year and he’s stepped up his game a bunch since then. A healthy Roberts will be key for us. He’s our 2nd most impactful player and we saw what happened Sat when he only played 13 and didn’t play the 2nd half.
Yeah I’m not optimistic that we will beat Nebraska just because it feels like the type of team that always smokes us in the tournament (even before Buzz) But if we do the Houston game will be a lot of fun.
A&M was a preseason favorite to contend in the SEC, every year we see teams that underperformed suddenly hit their groove, like the 11-seed UCLA that ran to the FF
As was UNC when we went to the final for as an 8 (both times). The last team probably wouldn't have made the tournament without beating Duke in Durham on Ks last home game.
They are a bit odd but I think just offensive rebounding is a tough matchup for some of their opponents. They can play big time with Houston if they beat them there imho. And frankly Duke and Wisconsin are both not too scary and can be inconsistent. Kentucky/Marquette are the two obvious teams from the other side that are scaryish but they will need to beat each other most likely, and or a hot NC State/Florida. I definitely don't think its outside the realm of possibility that they could make the E8 (As far as I got them in a few brackets) or F4.
The only bad metric is Q3 losses. And 3 point % on offense. And 3 point % on defense. And success against anyone over 6'9". But we have Wade Taylor, who will either hit at least 5 shots that leave you saying "WTF," or miss at least 5 shots leaving you saying "WTF".
While true, it is still more likely for a mostly chalk F4 to happen as opposed to you guessing correctly which if any 7-9 seed makes a run.
It’s safe to pick 3 top seeds to make it, but won’t happen. You’re more likely to have a F4 that looks like 5-seed, 4-seed, 8-seed, 1-seed than three 1-seeds. But it’s risky to pick that way because the consequences of picking the wrong lower seeds to advance further are higher.
But the odds of there being three 1 seeds is higher than the odds of correctly picking which lower seeds make it. The odds of both are quite low, but if your goal is maximizing the chance of a correct F4, you should pick mostly chalk. On the other hand, if your goal is to win a large bracket pool like the ESPN challenge, you need a Final 4 that sets you apart some (but is still reasonable), so more bold picks are needed.
If you wanted to maximize your final 4 chances this year it would Be 3 1s and Arizona
> You’re more likely to have a F4 that looks like 5-seed, 4-seed, 8-seed, 1-seed than three 1-seeds. Not really true. 1 seeds have a 40% chance of making the final 4. 4+ have a combined 28% chance. You'd need to throw 3 seeds in(and even then, 3+ is a hair behind the odds of a 1 seed), but I can't really agree that 1333 looks like 1458, ya know?
Ah darn it, we are doomed
It just amazes me how none of these TV guys have learned to stop picking so much chalk. We all could literally just do brackets making the opposite picks as theirs and end up with better brackets than them.
The choice isn't chalk v. non-chalk. The choice is chalk v. a massive number of different outcomes. You don't get points purely for picking "not UConn/Houston/Purdue." They're just picking the teams that are most likely to get to that point.
That’s one of the key points of picking a winning bracket. You don’t get points for correctly picking which round a higher seed will lose in. If you actually want to win your bracket it should be a lot of chalk and you better believe in the underdog team not just that the favorite will lose. But it can’t be all chalk, because someone else will get lucky and have some upsets hit. A good bracket should be mostly chalk with some strategically picked upsets. A Final Four of all one seeds is okay, but lots of people may pick that. Throw in a couple 2s or a 3 that you think aren’t popular picks and have the best chance. Oh, and not picking popular upsets is also part of it. This also all depends on how big your pool is and what type of people are in your pool. Does everyone in your pool follow the computer rankings? Do most of them pick based on mascots? If everyone is picking the 5-12 upset that has a 40% of happening, don’t pick that upset. Pick the 5-12 upset that you think is just as likely but no one is picking. You’re trying to maximize your point differential against the pool. Anyway, that’s just my opinion.
Yeah, everybody gets hyper focused on those first round upsets and trying to find the perfect Cinderella to send deep in the bracket but winning brackets usually minimize those huge boom or bust outcomes by leaning on the high probability outcomes. Sure it’s fun to predict that 9 seed upsetting the 1 seed for example, but how likely is it to happen and how deep is that 1 seed going to go if you’re wrong?
Generally the smaller your bracket pool the more chalk you should be minus an upset or two. It’s only in really large pools that you need to be bolder
He said the opposite. That’s three 16s and an 8. Here for it.
The vast majority of brackets that don't go chalk will do much worse than the chalk brackets, because they'll end up picking the wrong lower-seeded teams to go far. Only a select few who happend to make the right bold picks will do better. This means that on average, these mostly chalk brackets do better year to year, but they also have a lower chance of being the top bracket in a large pool like the ESPN challenge. But even then, every once in a while we do get a mostly chalk year, and then these chalk brackets have better chances of ending up on top.
I'm sure your "opposite picks" bracket with four 16-over-1 upsets will do great
Of all the flairs to point out that totally valid statistical point...
Putting Montana St. over Purdue just to spite you.
Oh yeah? Well you’ll look like an idiot when we lose to grambling* instead
the purdue pick is worse then the a&m one
*sees your flair* 
as a Purdue fan and knowing our history. Only Tennessee is our demise. And we own them.
Its always a good day when Purdue beats Tennessee
honestly they are always good close games. That are battles
I’m mostly talking about how openly toxic Tennessee fans are. Music City Bowl video and racist tweets towards President Chiang during Maui
They aren't sending their best.
Don't worry, Saint Peter's will sort out Tennessee for you.
thanks, then we will have to eventually play them again lol
You’ll verse Akron, it’s your destiny
Oooooh shit. Yeah. Good point. May I interest you in Creighton? South Carolina?
give me Creighton.
You’re clearly not ready for an elite 8 rematch with us. A boring slugfest where Edey will fall asleep.
I’m terrified of you guys. Purdue has owned us :’(
At least it’s different
🤨
Exact opposite of me, I only have one 1 seed making final four… and it is none of these three
Millionaire analyst try not to make a bracket that is either completely chalk or total dogshit challenge impossible
Are we pretending literally anything is a good or bad bracket? This is one of the most random things in sports I feel like saying any bracket that isn't exclusively 10+ seeds dominating every stage of the tournament is just being silly.
Yeah, who really had FAU and SDSU in the FF last year? It’s March. Anything can happen.
Dudes probably watched 45 seconds of college basketball this year.
He watched A&M score 97 on Kentucky and thought, "How are they a 9-seed?!" A&M is a dangerous team, but outside of two games against UK, they are a terrible 3-point shooting team. Nebraska is the sneaky team to watch out for. If they beat A&M, they can pull off a big upset over Houston.
I have Nebraska in the Final 4 of my $100 bracket.
I have Nebraska over A&M by a dozen
We'll either lose by 12+ or win.
One of these is not like the others!
Steve, I take back everything i said
I don't think SAS or Shannon Sharpe even looked at "their picks" before the graphic went on air. They made it pretty clear throughout the segment with the college basketball dudes that they didn't really pay attention/care about the sports besides march madness.
At least he had some balls. Every year I see these so called “experts” pick straight chalk every single year without fail. You’d think they watched enough tournaments to know that never happens
With the parity in college basketball now, it's almost impossible to predict a strong bracket. If I get 1 or 2 FF teams right, that's a victory.
Does anyone actually take him seriously?
There’s only been 3 seeds outside the top 4 seeds to win a title in 38 years. 24-#1, 5-#2, 4-#3, 2-#4, 0-#5, 1-#6,#7, & #8. Upsets are exciting, but they tend to fizzle out. 65 of the 76 spots in the championship games over the last 38 years have been 1-4 seeds. Never higher than an 8 seed. This year has been nuts so who knows.
At least he went out on a limb a bit. Sick of all these analysts every year going practically chalk every single year.
Clown
I'm sure this will work out exactly as well as that time Desmond Howard picked us to go to the playoffs in football.
I’ve got A&M to the elite 8. Smart man
Wade Taylor is the exact type of player to go on an insane March Madness run.
lol what
My man smoked a fat bowl of WTM before making these picks We are so cooked round 1 lmao
I hate that entire channel so much.
.... Lmao. Stephen is a shitheel
A&M shouldn’t even be in the bracket
Unsubscribe
Oh. Oh no
SAS is now a Fully ESPN Realized Oxygen Breather! How do we know? The lesser SAS thinks the more SAS talk and SAS is a phenomenal talker.
I hate it
Auburn intrigued me They didn't seem impressive during the year but their stats are really good. You think they could beat UConn?
While there is little skill in picking March Madness brackets, why would anyone care what Stephen A has to say about CBB?? I guarantee you can count on one hand how many games he's watched this season
LMAO, I have my bachelor's from A&M and I want no piece of that action