The 2023-2024 College Hoops Season

[SeaBreeze341]

The most recent rankings include Houston, Connecticut, Purdue, North Carolina, & Tennessee rounding out the Top 5 within the Associated Press' Top 25 Poll.  During Championship Week in College Football, the care for an AP poll isn't really there, but in College Hoops there isn't a CFB Playoff Rankings.  Instead, my go-to people include Joe Lunardi & Jerry Palm & the Bracketology.

There will be a committee choosing the teams, but the daily updates from those two mentioned above & others are rather interesting.  For what it's worth, Jerry and Joe both have Purdue as their Top overall seed, and North Carolina as a 2 seed amongst those AP Top 5.  So UNC winning the ACC Tournament probably will change nothing.

The fifth & sixth bids in the 2024 Men's NCAA Tournament will be decided tonight.  Well, TBH, people know of several teams that will be dancing in a week, but none of them are official until Sunday (03.17.24) unless they win their conference tournament in advance.  Basically the teams whose tournament finals are early in the week will have to win their game if they want to be one of 68 teams vying for the 2024 National Championship.

By the way, there has been some talk about expansion.  If so, that's great.  It's not a super big deal unless 4 of the non-power conference winners get to bypass a date in Dayton in advance of the tournament proper.  Overall, expansion of anything isn't very good early on, but then I can respect & adapt in the long run.  Given the new super conferences, I think it might be necessary going forward.

[SeaBreeze341]

As of around 5 PM Eastern, it appears that 30 of the 32 automatic spots have been disclosed.  As is the custom, the Big Ten Tourney winner will fill out the last spot.  It looks like UAB might be okay over Temple.  I do believe that Illinois & Wisconsin will definitely be fine if one of those two end up being the runner up in the Big 10 Tournament Final.

If I made a typo in the following, blame me (and CBSSN LOL):

Akron, Auburn, Charleston Colgate, Connecticut, Drake, Duquesne, Grambling State, Grand Canyon University,Howard, Iowa State, James Madison, Long Beach State, Longwood, McNesse State, Montana State, Morehead State, New Mexico,North Carolina State, Oakland,Oregon, Saint Mary's, Saint Peter, Samford,South Dakota State,Stetson, Vermont, Wagner, Western Kentucky, Yale

Barring Overtime, there should be enough time for filler prior to the Selection Show, which will feature the other 36 or so at-large bids.  That number, I think, is a tad bit confusing at this minute since the committee still sends a couple (4) low major winners to Dayton in advance of the Tournament Proper.

Finally, I never thought I'd ever type in Duquesne in terms of people dancing.

[jmorgan]

The Sweet 16 is all set in this year's men's tournament. They are:

Arizona (21st; 2022)
Gonzaga (14th; 2023)
North Carolina (35th; 2022)
Iowa State (7th; 2022)
NC State (14th; 2015, and also the last double-digit seed remaining)
Tennessee (10th; 2023)
Illinois (12th; 2005)
Creighton (6th; 2023)
Marquette (17th; 2013)
Purdue (14th; 2022)
Duke (33rd; 2022)
Clemson (5th; 2018)
Alabama (11th; 2023)
UConn (20th; 2023)
Houston (16th; 2023)
San Diego State (6th; 2023)

[SeaBreeze341]

Here are tonight's lines:
Connecticut favored by 8.5 over Illinois (154.5 O/U)
Alabama favored by 3.5 over Clemson  (164.5 O/U)
Purdue favored by 3.5 over Tennessee (147.5 O/U)
Duke favored by 6.5 over North Carolina State (142.5 O/U)

UCONN is halfway home toward a successful title defense, but they will be facing some very decent competition going forward.  They're still rolling, until proven otherwise, their margin of victory should remain decent enough to avoid stress.

Feels like a College Football Playoff game between the Tide and Clemson, down to the spread.  Of course, subtract 100 from the over/under.

Purdue & Tennessee get more praise Gonzaga.  Yeah the former beat them, but they also haven't been this far or had as much success over the past quarter century.

Revenge or not for Duke over NC State.  We shall see. 

[SeaBreeze341]

Almost forgot the tip times for this weekend's action, which can be found right here

[JayC]

In the Women's tournament, South Carolina defeated Iowa to complete an undefeated season.

Connecticut and Purdue face off for the Men's championship game tomorrow night.

[SeaBreeze341]

18.7 Million Viewers for Iowa & South Carolina.  A record & the highest total in 32 years.  That will be more than whatever the final total ends up being for the Men's Tournament Final, unless it isn't.

To be fair, Purdue/UCONN is on cable, and when bring up a lesser total from 2023, San Diego State isn't a big brand when compared to Purdue.  Still, the numbers are the numbers.

Speaking of the Title game, Connecticut will end up as a 6.5 favorite before tip off.  The Over/Under is 143.5.  We're either going to get maximum redemption 2.0 or our first back-to-back winner since Bob was still hosting

[SeaBreeze341]

In winning their second title in as many years & their sixth championship in over a quarter century, Connecticut is clearly amongst the best programs in history of the sport.  In winning as many as North Carolina & a decade faster between the first and most recent, all of their 12 wins, dating back to last year were by at least 10 points.  Unlike the Kansas City professional football team (who also ended a long drought of no repeat champions), I can't easily see UCONN's dominance ending for at least a year.

Great season by both teams, but as mentioned, having the best star isn't the winning answer.  Crazy thing is the stat line was enough to win a title game.  Just not when the champs had everyone that had to be stopped in order for Purdue to win last night

[SeaBreeze341]

As mentioned, the men's ratings were inferior to the women's ratings this year.  While the former was on TBS, it was superior to last year's game, which was on CBS.

One final note: Now former Kentucky HC John Calipari is staying in the SEC, but with Arkansas.  After 15 years, one title, two trips to the championship game, and several Final Four appearances including that 2015 one where they were 2 wins away from perfection (having to beat the other 2 one seeds to get there).  While it was less than the expectations, I think most would sign up for that at the very least