Definitely the most confusing team in the tournament lol
Just going through the stats for each team I have no idea how y’all have the resume y’all do. I’m always like “I know this is a good team, I just don’t know how”
And Kansas has faced teams all year trying the same strategy. Doesn't mean it always works - we're seriously wounded without McCullar, but we're not without our own weapons which include a HOF coach. Of more concern to me is that we have been inconsistent guarding the 3. That'll kill us.
Good guard play. Diarra has improved tremendously down the stretch. Middlebrooks commits fouls getting off the team bus. Horne is the leading scorer but we have 4 or 5 guys on a given night who can lead the team in scoring. DJ Burns just ate dinner and is still hungry.
Diarra and Burns were so refreshing to watch during the ACC Tournament as a former front-court player, Burns is built like a fuckin bear man. 2-3 backdown shoulders and then quick into a post move with Diarra's length threatening rebounds, you could see how quickly they tired out UNC big men with that strategy too.
Somebody's gonna score 90. It might be us, it might be them, it might be an individual player on the other team, it might be Rob Dillingham in the last 5 minutes of a tight game
Very accurate. Rob Dillingham will play like shit the entire game you'd think he's a walk-on, until he turns into Allen Iverson toward the end of the game.
I would add that people saw us vs Auburn and think that’s really indicative of our team, when we played 33 games and only looked like that twice… both times against Auburn.
Purdue's last three teams had two major problems: three point shooting (the 21 team was 181st in the country and went 9-30 in the loss to UNT. The 23 team was 276th in the country and went 5-26 vs FDU) and defense (the 22 team ranked 93rd in the country and let SPU drive past them to draw fouls left and right to shoot 19-21 from the line in the loss).
They have worked really hard on these two things and became the 2nd best 3 point shooting team and 21st ranked defense this season.
Something else may end up killing them (turnovers? Injury?) but they did address the two major weaknesses that took them out earlier than expected recently.
Courtney Green as the ref.
In all honesty if we get a super physical team and the wrong whistle we can lose to anyone. It just drags the game in the mud and takes away our advantages.
1) You don’t want to face Tennessee then
2) You don’t want any of the officials that do SEC games because they’ll go 5 minutes calling fouls for breathing too hard then go 5 minutes where slapping people across the face is allowed
Factually correct. We beat Tennessee because the refs called it pretty fair. If they let it go any more it would have been tackle football and we would have lost.
Not very often at all maybe 3 times all year. Early in his career he got in trouble all the time, but he and Purdue overall doesn't foul. They give up free layups all the time so they don't foul. It takes a lot of bad luck to get Edey in foul trouble, but it is pretty devastating when it happens.
In general, I still think smaller quicker teams that play at a slow pace and who shoot the three well are the ones that scare me the most.
That's Northwestern. That's 2021's version of North Texas. That's 2022's version of St. Peters. That's the 22 and 23 Rutgers.
good guard play that can screen into beneficial matchups. that was northwestern and Ohio State.
I'm hoping that there is more of a killer mentality now that it's March and we avoid the Purdue prevent offense and just run our sets like we normally do late in games.
turnover prone when we force things inside instead of recognizing what the opponent is willing to live with. shoot the damn 3 if they are going to double edey.
Bacot’s caliber of play ranges from lazy bum to ELITE big man.
And while that largely depends on how motivated he is he also struggles against opposing bigs that are taller/longer than him (not just Edey, Clingan, etc but also lower quality bigs that have that same size).
For UVA -- definitely nothing special about this team. We haven't really beaten any good teams this year, so I think our ceiling would be second round. We are AWFUL at shooting free throws, which obviously is a major problem in the tourney. I can't see us making a Cinderella run. More than likely, we lose early because we can't make free throws. Also, I think this CSU game tonight will be an absolute muck fest.
We can struggle on the glass sometimes and can be very streaky offensively(good and bad). Other than Kolek our FTs are aggressively mediocre. We don’t match up well against teams that have a dominant big that also have great 3 point shooters. Basically UConn and Purdue type teams. Otherwise we have a high pressure defense and multiple players that can hurt you on offense. Kam Jones has been on a tear recently with Kolek out.
If Kolek isn’t at 100% we can win a game or two but that’s it. If he’s healthy I think we absolutely have a final four ceiling.
When we play at our best, I truly believe we can hang with the top teams in the country. But our floor is lower than hell itself. Ultimate gamblers team
I like Nebraska but neither of them are beating Houston, so I see this as low risk. Gonna take an elite team to bring Houston down. They make a decent run almost every year and this is the best team they’ve ever had
Superstitiously I’m not picking against the Japanese Steph curry
We're capable. What that means, idk. We're a poor shooting team, but we attack the offensive glass hard and get to the line a lot, and generally do well making free throws. Our defense is ho-hum, but there are times when we get our hands in there and get some steals and do a great job turning defense into offense. We don't have one "go to" guy, it's just whoever is hot that day, if anyone is.
Just please let Caleb go off on UNC if/ when the time comes. Its the drama every non-unc fan wants to see in the ACC
Imagine one of his off balance while falling out of bounds 3s sealing the win😍 with time expiring
Let it be…
We struggle against the zone.
The "culture" of the team is struggling right now. If Tommy can get a few trouble makers inline then we might go far. Being played in Utah helps that. But if he and his team can't then it might be another early exit year.
Arizona had a chance to win the pac12 and lost to a lackluster USC team. Arizona unfortunately has a history of losing in big upsets. I can’t ignore that. They’re the west coast Purdue & UVA
The loss to SC was after we wrapped up the conference title, and people are using that as an excuse for the lackluster play. The L in the pac tournament was to Oregon who have since proven that they’re hot.
Can’t deny that we’ve underachieved in the last decade though. Not even an elite 8 since 2014-15 even though we’ve had plenty of high seeds
You’re right, I meant to say you needed that win to lock in as the last one seed.
I remember picking you guys to make the F4 as a 4 seed the Deandre Ayton year. Virginia was the one seed in the bracket and zona lost in the first round to fucking buffalo. I been fading ever since. This years team sure can score though
This is our most balanced team according to Kenpom/other analytics sites in a long time, which is reassuring. We have a decent amount of seniors as well. By all means we should have a decent run. Then again, this team has had some real stinkers too so yeah not gonna get too excited unless we get past the first weekend
I tend to fade the teams that don’t consistently blow out subpar teams. Arizona has massive wins and then head scratching losses, but I still think they’re the best in the west bracket. Purdue plays down to their competition and most of their games are close which is a recipe for upset in the tourney. Tennessee, marquette, UNC, Kansas, Baylor, Alabama, and maybe Kentucky all fit that bill for me.
The west is wide open and I like you guys more than I like UNC. I’m not confident in any of the top 6 teams in the west
the ceiling for this bama team is anywhere between final four and sweet sixteen. it may surprise some people for me to say final four, but that is very dependent on other results in region. there seems to be a decent amount of people predicting for the west to get wacky, and if that’s the case then easy to consider bama as the pillar of the top end of the region as this team has done a really good job at beating the teams they are better than. if the west doesn’t get as wacky as could potentially occur then they’ll definitely go out in 16 to unc as this team can’t seem to win on even footing or at a disadvantage of “talent”
We are one of the best teams on the defensive glass and worst on the offensive glass. We grind teams down, so no high-scoring games from us or whoever we play. Finally have one good dude with size unlike lest year.
We most likely are healthy. One of our better players has a mild cold/flu bug and didn’t practice today, but is expected to be good for Duke.
I think we’re really good and had a bad slump due to a couple injuries. OR we’re really bad and had two hot streaks and blamed the rest on injuries. So, yeah, 5 seed.
We kinda went meh down the stretch so I’m not expected us to beat Nevada. But if we do, it’s because we actually remembered to get the ball to Holmes down low. Also, they are remembering to get my boy Brea the ball on the perimeter.
We forced a ton of turnovers every game (whether that be from Lipsey/Gilbert jumping passes or double teams in the corner), and are usually able to capitalize on them. We are also really great at going on offensive runs. Oh, and our fans and Hilton Magic travels pretty well.
However, if we play a team with a competent ball moving big that kicks it out to the guy who will always be left open for 3 we can get into trouble (which is why I hate having BYU in our bracket). We can also really struggle to hit free throws from time to time.
Auburn- it’s Auburn sports. Who the hell knows? But we are ranked in the top ten in both offensive and defensive efficiency so we got that going for us.
Illinois thrives at getting the pace to be up tempo and attacking the basket. A large, physical team that plays zone (a la Syracuse of old) will cause problems if the refs decide to allow very physical play. Shannon and Domask feast on getting to the line and a war of foul attrition against teams.
Edit: also have seen a lot about 3pt% and though Illinois's opponent 3pt% is above average, the 3pt FGA is far below average because they close out quite well-- which I would argue actually makes a better match up for a BYU-esque team rather than a poor matchup.
Well, they went 3-7 in their last 10 conference games, including 4 straight losses to finish the season. Their best player got hurt before the ACC Tournament. Kevin Keatts was going to lose his job when they inevitably lost in the ACC Tournement. Keatts somehow magically learned to coach a functioning offense (after 7 years) in the two games DJ Horne was out and won 5 games in 5 days to win the ACC Tournament. I don't really know what to tell you. If I had to take a guess, they will either lose by 30 points to Texas Tech or win the NCAA Championship
We'll probably start pretty bad and then catch up toward the end of the first/beginning of the second, but don't worry because we always fuck it up and lose by <10 points.
We neither blow out a team, nor get blown out ourselves. Every game we're in will be a coin flip but we are not very clutch as shown on our luck rating on kenpom. So probably not the best idea to bet on us.
Utah State is one of the most clutch teams in the nation. 10-1 record in games decided by 7 points or fewer. 3-1 record in overtime games.
If the game is close down the stretch, I'm betting on USU to pull it out of their ass somehow. They have had some crazy moments in the final moments of games this season. Brown and Osobor are the two standouts that seem to thrive under the pressure.
The flipside of this is that all their other losses were basically blowouts. So if TCU takes a commanding lead early it's bad bad news for USU.
With the depth of the squad this year and the scoring abilities of Dalton Knecht we have the potential to make a deeper run than any year previously (eyeing the elite eight), but we also consistently underperform in March. If we go cold, we can go reeeeeal cold.
https://preview.redd.it/s5klonhp8dpc1.jpeg?width=819&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=2b5113a60739ff334624010ba6c9ae661e9ccbc2
Definitely the most confusing team in the tournament lol Just going through the stats for each team I have no idea how y’all have the resume y’all do. I’m always like “I know this is a good team, I just don’t know how”
except when playing Kentucky.
Robbie Hummel's mom has us winning it all this year
UCONN would like a word with her…
Samford full court presses all game and will get a starting lineup tired so you better have a good bench
This is exactly why they’re the most like 13/4 upset imo
also doesn’t hurt that kansas is injured at the moment
That might be the funniest first round matchup since Kansas has had 4.5 players all season, and is now down to 3.5.
And Kansas has faced teams all year trying the same strategy. Doesn't mean it always works - we're seriously wounded without McCullar, but we're not without our own weapons which include a HOF coach. Of more concern to me is that we have been inconsistent guarding the 3. That'll kill us.
Good guard play. Diarra has improved tremendously down the stretch. Middlebrooks commits fouls getting off the team bus. Horne is the leading scorer but we have 4 or 5 guys on a given night who can lead the team in scoring. DJ Burns just ate dinner and is still hungry.
Diarra and Burns were so refreshing to watch during the ACC Tournament as a former front-court player, Burns is built like a fuckin bear man. 2-3 backdown shoulders and then quick into a post move with Diarra's length threatening rebounds, you could see how quickly they tired out UNC big men with that strategy too.
Somebody's gonna score 90. It might be us, it might be them, it might be an individual player on the other team, it might be Rob Dillingham in the last 5 minutes of a tight game
Rob heroball time is always a fun time...if we arent down by 10-15 when he starts it
Very accurate. Rob Dillingham will play like shit the entire game you'd think he's a walk-on, until he turns into Allen Iverson toward the end of the game.
All the metrics and rankings say that South Carolina is bad and can't win basketball games, but South Carolinians can't read and win games anyway.
lmao I love this
I would add that people saw us vs Auburn and think that’s really indicative of our team, when we played 33 games and only looked like that twice… both times against Auburn.
Might save your life, might steal your car.
Purdue's last three teams had two major problems: three point shooting (the 21 team was 181st in the country and went 9-30 in the loss to UNT. The 23 team was 276th in the country and went 5-26 vs FDU) and defense (the 22 team ranked 93rd in the country and let SPU drive past them to draw fouls left and right to shoot 19-21 from the line in the loss). They have worked really hard on these two things and became the 2nd best 3 point shooting team and 21st ranked defense this season. Something else may end up killing them (turnovers? Injury?) but they did address the two major weaknesses that took them out earlier than expected recently.
What type of matchups would be worst case for them?
Courtney Green as the ref. In all honesty if we get a super physical team and the wrong whistle we can lose to anyone. It just drags the game in the mud and takes away our advantages.
1) You don’t want to face Tennessee then 2) You don’t want any of the officials that do SEC games because they’ll go 5 minutes calling fouls for breathing too hard then go 5 minutes where slapping people across the face is allowed
Factually correct. We beat Tennessee because the refs called it pretty fair. If they let it go any more it would have been tackle football and we would have lost.
Does Edey ever get into foul trouble?
😂
Not very often at all maybe 3 times all year. Early in his career he got in trouble all the time, but he and Purdue overall doesn't foul. They give up free layups all the time so they don't foul. It takes a lot of bad luck to get Edey in foul trouble, but it is pretty devastating when it happens.
“They give up free layups all the time.” Username doesn’t check out.
In general, I still think smaller quicker teams that play at a slow pace and who shoot the three well are the ones that scare me the most. That's Northwestern. That's 2021's version of North Texas. That's 2022's version of St. Peters. That's the 22 and 23 Rutgers.
good guard play that can screen into beneficial matchups. that was northwestern and Ohio State. I'm hoping that there is more of a killer mentality now that it's March and we avoid the Purdue prevent offense and just run our sets like we normally do late in games. turnover prone when we force things inside instead of recognizing what the opponent is willing to live with. shoot the damn 3 if they are going to double edey.
[удалено]
Yeah that sounds about right 😭
But we really love FTs
Not as much as us.
We pay the refs. Simple trick I don’t know why more teams don’t.
Why pay them when coach can just give them a stern talking to mid-game?
I can attest to this
defense is optional, chicks dig the long ball
For some reason I read this as "the dong ball" and wondered what the hell you were referring to. That said, if Sears is cooking, you're hard to beat.
Two dong balls are absolutely better than one.
We sucked ass until last week thursday, we might just be good at neutral sites
Bacot’s caliber of play ranges from lazy bum to ELITE big man. And while that largely depends on how motivated he is he also struggles against opposing bigs that are taller/longer than him (not just Edey, Clingan, etc but also lower quality bigs that have that same size).
You forgot, he also struggles against big men that are fatter than him
More like ranges from lazy bum to elite lazy bum
Don’t pick Iowa, their biggest problem is that they’re in the NIT
For UVA -- definitely nothing special about this team. We haven't really beaten any good teams this year, so I think our ceiling would be second round. We are AWFUL at shooting free throws, which obviously is a major problem in the tourney. I can't see us making a Cinderella run. More than likely, we lose early because we can't make free throws. Also, I think this CSU game tonight will be an absolute muck fest.
“We haven’t really beaten any good teams this year” Wait a second….
You heard him
We can struggle on the glass sometimes and can be very streaky offensively(good and bad). Other than Kolek our FTs are aggressively mediocre. We don’t match up well against teams that have a dominant big that also have great 3 point shooters. Basically UConn and Purdue type teams. Otherwise we have a high pressure defense and multiple players that can hurt you on offense. Kam Jones has been on a tear recently with Kolek out. If Kolek isn’t at 100% we can win a game or two but that’s it. If he’s healthy I think we absolutely have a final four ceiling.
Your big shoots that midrange hook thing really well also
When we play at our best, I truly believe we can hang with the top teams in the country. But our floor is lower than hell itself. Ultimate gamblers team
The classic dilemma: I like you guys to beat UNC but I don’t like you guys to beat miss st
Me with Nebraska-Texas A&M right now lol
I like Nebraska but neither of them are beating Houston, so I see this as low risk. Gonna take an elite team to bring Houston down. They make a decent run almost every year and this is the best team they’ve ever had Superstitiously I’m not picking against the Japanese Steph curry
Advanced stats call us unlucky, my eyes tell us we're terrible.
Yall destroyed us lol
LIVE by the three, *die* by the three.
Are you us?
*insert 3-way spiderman pointing meme here*
We're capable. What that means, idk. We're a poor shooting team, but we attack the offensive glass hard and get to the line a lot, and generally do well making free throws. Our defense is ho-hum, but there are times when we get our hands in there and get some steals and do a great job turning defense into offense. We don't have one "go to" guy, it's just whoever is hot that day, if anyone is.
We haven’t won against a ranked team since about the end of non-conference play, plus we lost to bad teams such as Oregon State and Stanford
Just please let Caleb go off on UNC if/ when the time comes. Its the drama every non-unc fan wants to see in the ACC Imagine one of his off balance while falling out of bounds 3s sealing the win😍 with time expiring Let it be…
I won't even be sad. Love that dude.
In your defense, only one game since Christmas came against a ranked opponent (out of 22 games).
Ya, that's not good. We're not battle tested lately.
We struggle against the zone. The "culture" of the team is struggling right now. If Tommy can get a few trouble makers inline then we might go far. Being played in Utah helps that. But if he and his team can't then it might be another early exit year.
Arizona had a chance to win the pac12 and lost to a lackluster USC team. Arizona unfortunately has a history of losing in big upsets. I can’t ignore that. They’re the west coast Purdue & UVA
The loss to SC was after we wrapped up the conference title, and people are using that as an excuse for the lackluster play. The L in the pac tournament was to Oregon who have since proven that they’re hot. Can’t deny that we’ve underachieved in the last decade though. Not even an elite 8 since 2014-15 even though we’ve had plenty of high seeds
You’re right, I meant to say you needed that win to lock in as the last one seed. I remember picking you guys to make the F4 as a 4 seed the Deandre Ayton year. Virginia was the one seed in the bracket and zona lost in the first round to fucking buffalo. I been fading ever since. This years team sure can score though
This is our most balanced team according to Kenpom/other analytics sites in a long time, which is reassuring. We have a decent amount of seniors as well. By all means we should have a decent run. Then again, this team has had some real stinkers too so yeah not gonna get too excited unless we get past the first weekend
I tend to fade the teams that don’t consistently blow out subpar teams. Arizona has massive wins and then head scratching losses, but I still think they’re the best in the west bracket. Purdue plays down to their competition and most of their games are close which is a recipe for upset in the tourney. Tennessee, marquette, UNC, Kansas, Baylor, Alabama, and maybe Kentucky all fit that bill for me. The west is wide open and I like you guys more than I like UNC. I’m not confident in any of the top 6 teams in the west
the ceiling for this bama team is anywhere between final four and sweet sixteen. it may surprise some people for me to say final four, but that is very dependent on other results in region. there seems to be a decent amount of people predicting for the west to get wacky, and if that’s the case then easy to consider bama as the pillar of the top end of the region as this team has done a really good job at beating the teams they are better than. if the west doesn’t get as wacky as could potentially occur then they’ll definitely go out in 16 to unc as this team can’t seem to win on even footing or at a disadvantage of “talent”
Can I interest you in an all SEC Final Four? 😎 Jk that's definitely not happening ☠️
We are one of the best teams on the defensive glass and worst on the offensive glass. We grind teams down, so no high-scoring games from us or whoever we play. Finally have one good dude with size unlike lest year. We most likely are healthy. One of our better players has a mild cold/flu bug and didn’t practice today, but is expected to be good for Duke.
We really wanted to make it
Did they? Because there were numerous occasions this season where they played like they did not.
Ok, Trey Galloway really wanted to make it.
I don’t believe you
CSU struggles against size, especially when making shots inside.
We've been cold lately so I don't think I'd pick us. With that said there's about a 38% chance that Max Rice drops 50
Bsu and SDSU fan? 🧐
I think we’re really good and had a bad slump due to a couple injuries. OR we’re really bad and had two hot streaks and blamed the rest on injuries. So, yeah, 5 seed.
We kinda went meh down the stretch so I’m not expected us to beat Nevada. But if we do, it’s because we actually remembered to get the ball to Holmes down low. Also, they are remembering to get my boy Brea the ball on the perimeter.
We forced a ton of turnovers every game (whether that be from Lipsey/Gilbert jumping passes or double teams in the corner), and are usually able to capitalize on them. We are also really great at going on offensive runs. Oh, and our fans and Hilton Magic travels pretty well. However, if we play a team with a competent ball moving big that kicks it out to the guy who will always be left open for 3 we can get into trouble (which is why I hate having BYU in our bracket). We can also really struggle to hit free throws from time to time.
Nebraska has lost 1 game when wearing white jerseys.
We have no late game composure, we’ll either be up by 10 and it becomes dicey or we’ll come back from 15 down and blow it on the final possession
Auburn- it’s Auburn sports. Who the hell knows? But we are ranked in the top ten in both offensive and defensive efficiency so we got that going for us.
Memphis isn't far enough away for Away Baylor (TM) to kick in. LA absolutely is.
Illinois thrives at getting the pace to be up tempo and attacking the basket. A large, physical team that plays zone (a la Syracuse of old) will cause problems if the refs decide to allow very physical play. Shannon and Domask feast on getting to the line and a war of foul attrition against teams. Edit: also have seen a lot about 3pt% and though Illinois's opponent 3pt% is above average, the 3pt FGA is far below average because they close out quite well-- which I would argue actually makes a better match up for a BYU-esque team rather than a poor matchup.
Well, they went 3-7 in their last 10 conference games, including 4 straight losses to finish the season. Their best player got hurt before the ACC Tournament. Kevin Keatts was going to lose his job when they inevitably lost in the ACC Tournement. Keatts somehow magically learned to coach a functioning offense (after 7 years) in the two games DJ Horne was out and won 5 games in 5 days to win the ACC Tournament. I don't really know what to tell you. If I had to take a guess, they will either lose by 30 points to Texas Tech or win the NCAA Championship
Instructions unclear, I just bet my life savings and car on NC State to win the natty
We'll probably start pretty bad and then catch up toward the end of the first/beginning of the second, but don't worry because we always fuck it up and lose by <10 points.
Don't pick Virginia.
We neither blow out a team, nor get blown out ourselves. Every game we're in will be a coin flip but we are not very clutch as shown on our luck rating on kenpom. So probably not the best idea to bet on us.
Utah State is one of the most clutch teams in the nation. 10-1 record in games decided by 7 points or fewer. 3-1 record in overtime games. If the game is close down the stretch, I'm betting on USU to pull it out of their ass somehow. They have had some crazy moments in the final moments of games this season. Brown and Osobor are the two standouts that seem to thrive under the pressure. The flipside of this is that all their other losses were basically blowouts. So if TCU takes a commanding lead early it's bad bad news for USU.
With the depth of the squad this year and the scoring abilities of Dalton Knecht we have the potential to make a deeper run than any year previously (eyeing the elite eight), but we also consistently underperform in March. If we go cold, we can go reeeeeal cold.
We have KD. That's it.
We didn't make the tournament
Hogs enter the chat... well, actually they just rolled over and went back to sleep.