Heading into the NCAA Tournament, the Big 12 led the conference RPI ratings, slightly ahead of the Big East. The ACC was third, followed inexplicably by the SEC and finally the Big Ten, holding down the fifth spot.
| Conference | W | L | % | Sweet 16 |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Big Ten | 7 | 2 | 0.778 | 3 |
| Pac-10 | 3 | 1 | 0.750 | 1 |
| SEC | 4 | 2 | 0.667 | 2 |
| Big 12 | 7 | 5 | 0.583 | 2 |
| Big East | 6 | 6 | 0.500 | 2 |
| ACC | 5 | 5 | 0.500 | 1 |
After an opening weekend of upsets befitting the "madness" moniker, it's the Big Ten flexing its muscles, however. Four of the five selections from the slow and plodding conference advanced to the second round and three of them -- the most of any conference -- clawed their way to the Sweet Sixteen.
The Buckeyes, of course, slipped past a sloppy Georgia Tech team on Sunday afternoon and were quickly joined in the next round by the Spartans, who used a Korie Lucious three at the buzzer to beat Maryland and Purdue, getting similar heroics out of Chris Kramer, dropped Texas A&M in OT.
Looking ahead a bit, both the Buckeyes and Spartans find themselves in a regional without Kansas all of a sudden, thanks to scrappy Northern Iowa. The Buckeyes run up against Tennessee, the team they beat in 2007 to advance to the Elite Eight in the early game on Friday, while both Michigan State and Purdue play in late games that day. The Spartans will face Northern Iowa and even without Kalin Lucas, you have to give the edge to Izzo's crew on talent alone (just don't tell that to the Jayhawks). Purdue gets Duke and though they've faced some questions as they've battled without Robbie Hummel, we're going to find out just how paper of a tiger the Blue Devils are. Besides, how hard is it to root against Duke?
Realistically, the conference could get two teams into the Elite Eight. The two I'm envisioning, the Buckeyes and Spartans, will play each other in the next round, so there's little hope for the conference to pull a pair for the Final Four (unless Purdue catches fire), but even putting two in the round of eight is enough to give Digger Phelps an upset stomach for a day or two, so there's that.
State of the Site
Corey has been with the site since the early days -- back when we only had three readers instead of the 12 we currently have -- and has covered everything from basketball previews to keeping tabs on Buckeyes in the NFL or opining on the relative strengths of offensive line units. Outside of the blog, he's equally as busy helping to run his family's business and it's reached the point where the business has grown to the point where he'll have to peel back his duties around these parts to ensure his dad can get that solid gold cigarette boat he's always wanted.
HERE'S TO COREY!He's going to finish out the basketball season and might contribute in some manner down the road, but effective the end of the tournament, he'll be assuming the role of Blogger Emeritus at 11W Industries. We're sad to see him move on, but know he's promised to deliver season tickets to us all if the does as well as they think it will. If you get a chance, be sure to wish him good luck.
In that vein, we will be looking to fill his position on our staff. We're not quite sure when we want to have it filled, but by the start of football season seems to make some sense. If think you'd like to contribute to the cause, shoot us a note with a writing sample and your best fart jokes.
In other site news, we reached out to That Hippie Up North last fall for some tips on how to migrate our current WordPress rig to the Drupal setup he has (except without all of the piss-colored links). We've been hard at work on this and hope to have it 11W 3.0 out before the start of football season. Many of the features present at MGoBlog, such as user karma, diaries (but with a less wimpy name), forums, the end of handle-jacking and a Good Shizzy section that you can actually contribute to (and comment on) and more. If you have any tips for us, we'd love to hear them, but in the meantime, prepare to get in and get that fresh username.
That's Knowledge
Early shout-out to comoprozac and his entry in the 11W Tournament Challenge. His 510 points are good enough for a 30 point lead on 2nd place and the rest of the pack and his 1240 possible points remaining are also tops in the group. Best of all, he's got the Buckeyes winning it all.
Incidentally, the #1 bracket among millions submitted to ESPN also has the Buckeyes cutting down the nets. I'm going to go ahead and take that as a good sign.
Comments
"Bangin' on the bongos like a chimpanzee That ain't workin' that's the way you do it Get your money for nothin' get your chicks for free"
I didn't realize that Corey was a fan of 'Dire Straits'. Good luck, Corey.
(from the artist formerly known as comoprozac)
I would gladly lose the rest of my picks if it means that OSU wins this thing. Here's to hoping ET cuts his TO's in half.
This may be weird... but personally I'd like to keep some of the flow of the site the way it is.
I like being able to just toss in a name and comment instead of worrying about registering and remembering my password. I like keeping the sidebar links and the comments clean and simple conversation instead of being overwhelmed with a bunch of fan post links that probably aren't worth having their own thread.
I guess what I'm saying is that I find this site, while much less 'advanced' from a technical web 2.0 standpoint, much cleaner than mgoblog, and I end up reading more of the simple comments here than I do the more complicated stuff over there.
Of course, I also know about three or four different people who post here under "Mike," but when I'm leaving a random comment about how awesome Turner is I don't really care about building a web reputation, I just want to share whatever thought I had and go on.
I agree with my fellow Mike. I like the simplicity of the site. I always know where certain features are going to be, and always enjoy the little comments on the sidebar links.
I agree with the Mike's, i love the simplicity of this compared with all the BS on those newer blogs. It's so much cleaner and easier to find exactly what you're looking for. I guess what i'm saying is change is bad
yeah i'm w/ the mikes. mgoblog just seems way to complicated. while it "looks cooler" it seems much less streamlined. i've nvr been a fan of the fanshots/fanposts anyway. i love the style of this site now. Good Shizzy must live on!!!!!!!
I'm with 11W on revamping things, it's time to take this blog to the next level. OSU has arguably the largest fanbase of any college football team--I'd say only Penn State and Notre Dame give it a serious run for its money--and yet we have a noticeable lack of quality OSU blogs. This injustice cannot be suffered. Onward and upward into the twenty-teens.
I think forums are a huge WIN....makes it easy to discuss posted links, off topics, ticket exchange etc....also log-in complaints are lazy and it will help minimize trolls and anonymous cowards.......I like the idea and trust you guys to keep your sleek design and easy usage, unlike mgoblog
Anyone see those SEC bball teams? They are slow. They don't have Big Ten SPEEEEEEED! LOL
Guys, please don't emulate mgoblog. You/we are better than that.
I definitely get what you guys are saying, but rest assured it will look nothing like nor function much like MGoBlog. In fact, the first theme we've been toying with on Drupal keeps the layout 99% the same and I'm hoping the familiar environment will help mitigate some of the chaos that will pop up from move to a new system.
We're just looking to take advantage of some of the community features offered by that platform.
As for ease of commenting, I imagine we'll start out allowing anonymous comments, but they might not allow you to put in any nickname you want.
At any rate, we appreciate the feedback.
I'm sure you guys know what you're doing. Just voicing some appreciation for the old fashioned moderated content model ;)
I will say UK is pretty fast, but Cornell is going to pose some bigtime problems. The most underrated seed I've seen in quite some time. That team is really good.
I have no problem with forums, but I'm not a huge fan of log-ins, it's one of the main reasons i don't like SBNation blogs. Obviously we'd need a log-in for the forums, but for the blog comments I think it's unnecessary
Yeah, I agree with Mike, Mike & Charlie. Too much nonsense to get registered/logged on, etc. I rarely visit the site and never comment there. Frankly, it would be the same for me if 11W went that way.
Interesting quote on CBS yesterday...."That John Wooden never played more than 7 players when they had their great UCLA teams". I never thought lack of depth would be a problem.....It's without a question TURNOVERS ! Nothing more frustrating than to come down & not even get a shot. The game is actually measured in possessions & nothing better than to get points from opposition turnover (especially fast break points).
Agreed, log-ins would not allow for us to have as much fun as we did during recruiting season this year... For example, when someone used the nickname Sean Henderson and went on a rant about Colt 45s and such lol.. good times
Agreed. If we have to login, I cant change my name to Vanilla Ice when I wanna say "Word to your mother"
That's where I come in.
haha :P
I've always believed the depth argument to be overstated anyway. It really only hurts if you have a major injury like Turner. These guys are late teens early 20's and in great shape, sorry but playing 2 games in 3 days just isn't that exhausting.
Is it a problem for conditioning reasons? No, probably not. Injuries? Yes, heaven forbid. Foul trouble? Certainly. If someone fouls out and PJ Hill is in at the end of game for them, that's one less guy they are gonna worry about getting open for the last second shot.
That being said, we let GT, and UCSB for that matter, hang around a lot longer than they should have because of turnovers (and missing lots of silly shots).
Evan Turner wins the Oscar Robertson Trophy as USBWA's Player of the Year!
http://www.sportswriters.net/u...
Change isn't necessarily bad. This particular change, could be.
"community features?" You mean... you guys will friend me on Facebook? :)
I definitely agree about the turnovers. How well we take care of the ball has pretty much been the difference between the games we rolled (Minnesota) and the ones we were lucky to escape (Michigan, Illinois).
I'm only worried about depth if someone gets injured or if Turner or Lighty get into foul trouble.
I don't know, even though the other teams hung around, I got a sense the team didn't struggle to beat them. Those games don't worry me for the next round though. Sometimes you watch a team playand they sleepwalk through to the sweet 16, I just don't see that with this team so far.
I guess I'm the lucky number 13 reader. But defintely not the Maurice Clarett of 11W.
We all seem to be on the same page...one other point...love to come out and score some points early !!!!! We've seen enough B-ball to know the game is a "series of runs" ...It would be nice to get that cushion. I think being a Buckeye fan we've learned there are very few "laughers"..Basketball or Football !!!!!!
agreed, rocky top is the suck. what kind of song has a line about no telephone bills, like lack of a telephone is awesome?
do the lady buckeyes get any love on here for their basketball powers?
regular season big ten champs...big ten tourney champs...#2 seed...
They'd get more love if they didn't pull one of these every year http://scores.espn.go.com/ncw/...
I root very hard for Buckeyes of both sexes. When I was enrolled, I went to the Schott to cheer on men and women. I followed the women's b-ball team all season (11W would give them the occasional shout-out). I would pay money to help Samantha Prahalis eventually make it to the WNBA, because I can't get enough of watching her play. There may not be many passionate supporter of women's basketball who come to this site often, but I am one of them.
Having said all that, it's hard to ask people to get highly invested in a team that's always dropped from the NCAA tourney about 2 rounds early every doggone year.