2024 NCAA Tournament

[chito_and_leon]

Caitlin Clark is ridiculous. 40+ points, 15 assists, 8 rebounds. If a men's player did that they would never stop talking about it all week. And she gets to play Paige Bueckers in the national semi and Bueckers has been so overshadowed by Clark, Angel Reese, JuJu Watkins, and South Carolina that no one realizes she is, according to Geno, the best player in the country. Had she not lost most of the previous 2 seasons to knee injuries she'd be the topic of conversation. And seriously, just a testament to Geno Auriemma's place in the list of great basketball coaches. 5 players lost to injury this season with 1 of those a projected starter for UCONN. And with NC State also making the Final Four the women's game has grown as it's not the same cast of characters every year (UCONN, Notre Dame, Stanford, Tennessee....Tennessee just fired their coach for not making the Sweet Sixteen). The power teams are still a bit consolidated but the wealth of talent is spreading.

And South Carolina...currently far and away the best team and Dawn Staley could be one of those coaches I could see taking on a men's program. I believe she has the strength to do that.

Clark v Bueckers is the biggest individual matchup since, jeez, thinking back ... Maybe Clark v Angel Reese, remember that classic from way back when It's a phenomenal tournament. Bueckers went to HS a couple burbs over from us and I've followed her in college. In HS, she'd go into gyms that usually had 20 fans at a girls' game and the gym would be full with overflow crowd in the lobby. She'd stay until she had signed every autograph and talked to every person who wanted to talk to her. As a HS senior who was the #1 recruit in the country. I was always impressed by that.

Some people don't like Clark but a lot do - the Big10 WBB conference tournament was sold out and had attendance of 109k over the full tournament, more than doubling the prior record of 48k from the year before. Not all that's Clark, there were a lot of good teams in the Big10 (or so they thought) but a lot was.

 

[Tulsafanzz]

Thanks I keep forget about the pac teams moving to the big 10. However, for the purpose of jet lag I have found it easier to travel west than to travel east. I do believe that Georgia is in the eastern time zone.

I didn’t word that sentence properly. I should have said every member of the ACC is in a different time zone. I understand the jet lag issue with USC, but at least they have UCLA. They also have long time rivals Oregon and Washington. But yes, USC has ridiculous travel, too!

SMU is on an island by themselves. They will travel great distances both east and west. I would guess every single sport will be in the ACC & have the same travel burden. It’s definitely not good for “student “ athletes!

 

[lawpoke87]

I didn’t word that sentence properly. I should have said every member of the ACC is in a different time zone. I understand the jet lag issue with USC, but at least they have UCLA. They also have long time rivals Oregon and Washington. But yes, USC has ridiculous travel, too!

SMU is on an island by themselves. They will travel great distances both east and west. I would guess every single sport will be in the ACC & have the same travel burden. It’s definitely not good for “student “ athletes!

The one advantage SMU has is its Dallas location. There are direct flights to almost every airport in the country. Contrast to TU, OSU or OU where they have to fly to hub like Dallas and then on to their final destination. Thus significantly increasing travel time for those student athletes.

 

[chito_and_leon]

The one advantage SMU has is its Dallas location. There are direct flights to almost every airport in the country. Contrast to TU, OSU or OU where they have to fly to hub like Dallas and then on to their final destination. Thus significantly increasing travel time for those student athletes.

Pretty soon they'll just be able to Amtrak to Tulsa

 

[chito_and_leon]

Cal and Stanford, joining along with SMU, will each receive a 30% share of ACC payouts. The three schools' withholdings will create an annual allotment of revenue between $50 million and $60 million. Some will be divided proportionally among the 14 full-time members plus Notre Dame (a league member in everything but football), and there will also be money set aside for performance incentives. Officials said there is also conference distribution of other leaguewide splits such as College Football Playoff or NCAA tournament revenue.

I will wager the total ACC payouts will exceed the amount they would have received if they would have stayed in the AAC.

SMU will get paid more but also will have more expenses. They probably increased their BB coaching staff salary by $4m - $5m a year (staff not just HC) this week.

 

[lawpoke87]

SMU will get paid more but also will have more expenses. They probably increased their BB coaching staff salary by $4m - $5m a year (staff not just HC) this week.

Assume some of that will be offset by increased season and single game ticket sales. Will be curious to see how the financials work out for them when all is said and done. I know they raised $100M after the move to the ACC was announced. Big money in Dallas.

 

[Tulsafanzz]

Assume some of that will be offset by increased season and single game ticket sales. Will be curious to see how the financials work out for them when all is said and done. I know they raised $100M after the move to the ACC was announced. Big money in Dallas.

SMU is once again the poster child for what is wrong in college athletics.

 

[Gmoney4WW]

It would take three upsets, but I think it would be kinda neat if the NCAA Championship's in men's and women's basketball was both NCST & UCONN. This is the first final four with two of the same schools in it. This is the one & only situation I would be pulling for the Uconn men's team.

 

[loca2874]

UConn vs Purdue for the final. I can argue that the most successful Hurley is Dan and not Bobby

 

[HuffyCane]

SMU’s core ACC opponents are Stanford and Cal. They will play them regularly. They are 2 time zones & 1730 miles away. They also will travel to Miami, Boston & Syracuse. They have ZERO nearby rivals.

Their closest conference mate is Georgia Tech, 780 miles away. Every other member of the ACC is in a different time zone.

I call that ridiculous travel for a college athletic program.

This.

The money for SMU is a slight increase I’ve been told and they went to donors to get commitments to offset any losses up to a certain point and get some seed money for the move.

This isn’t counting the $200 million in facilities upgrades to bring their place up to ACC standards. If you count that, it’s a fool’s errand. Especially since other schools in the ACC are planning on tearing down some of those “upgrades” on their own campus.

SMU’s move is about getting to R1 status and it will be much easier and perhaps faster in the ACC.

The folly of the athletics arrangement is revealed in why they were selected over others, which proves they are no better than the American and everyone knows it. Their biggest drawing point was cheap, plentiful airfare to SFO for non-football sports and their willingness to control costs and a reasonable plan to take on and control debt if added, while agreeing not to dilute certain conference shares for a long period until they’ve added value up to that amount. IOW, the exact criteria to enter the AAC years ago.

The issue with student travel isn’t connecting flights or travel time. It’s cost as well as availability of flights and locations. Kids can’t miss class or tests. If you are flying in and out of small airports like you do most college towns, if that last flight is cancelled after the game, kids are stuck there. And class and practice schedules suffer. During spring rains, it can take days to get out of some towns, including Tulsa.

FSU used to keep a couple of vans on campus to shuttle opposing teams to JAX to work around cancelled or delayed flights at TLH. So there’s work arounds. But there’s no work around $850 a piece to fly to BOI from DFW and only $350 to fly to SFO. Non football programs work on small margins and coaches aren’t interested in giving Delta airlines any more than they have to. From their perspective, that comes out of their recruiting budget or couple be spent on increasing their compensation.

 

[TU_BLA]

UConn vs Purdue for the final. I can argue that the most successful Hurley is Dan and not Bobby

As a coach maybe. Bobby was a great player and a really under rated part of those early 90s Duke teams