[crackpot]

Preview:

I will return and keep editing this initial post to expand the preview as I learn more, but thought we should get the thread started for our first game in the NCAAs.

Two 16 seeds play each other on Wednesday at Maples, 6pm Pacific, for the privilege of playing Stanford on Friday, 4:30.  So we will have a couple of days to get ready for the winner.

Question for anyone who knows:  will the tickets we are purchasing to attend the first two rounds also admit us to this play-in round on Wednesday?  I will post the answer here once I know.

Sacred Heart is 18-13 overall and is getting back to the NCAAs for the first time in 11 years.  They play in the Northeast conference and beat Farleigh Dickinson, which had a much better record, in their tournament.    They are 258 in NET.

Southern is 18-14 overall.   They play in the Southwestern Conference, and were 4th in their regular season before winning their tournament.  Just like the Pac-12, neither of their league's two best teams competed to represent their league, and Southern actually beat a team with a losing record in the finals.  Southern is 257 in NET, so theoretically they are perfectly matched with Sacred Heart.

These two teams are, frankly, mediocre even in their own leagues before their league tournaments vaulted them over teams with much better records.  They are among the weakest teams in the tournament, and weaker than many many teams that did not make it to the tournament.  Neither of them could hold a candle to the infamous Harvard team of 1998, and worries about another 1/16 upset should be quashed.

So what kind of game could either of these two give us on Friday?  A lot will depend on what kinds of changes Tara has implemented in the wake of our dismal performance against UCLA, and how many of those changes she will be willing to show in what amounts to an exhibition game.  I don't expect to see anything new on Friday, and I do expect to see lots and lots of bench players contributing.  Come Sunday we will get a much better idea of whether, or how, Tara has reacted to our late season woes.

"...in what amounts to an exhibition game..."   Two words for you: "REMEMBER HARVARD!"

I made specific reference to Harvard.  Neither of these two teams are Harvard 1998, which was deliberately underseeded and had a a future pro in Alison Feaster.  The TV gods of the day just thought Stanford vs. Harvard would be cute, and so they demoted Harvard to a 16 to pull it off, when Harvard should have been a few seeds higher--and they really were ticked off.  And our 1 seed was obviously based on having two star players who could no longer play.  Unless Brink and Jones both go down with injuries (say whichever prayers your faith requires) (which is the equivalent of 1998 with Nygaard and Folkl), the situation won't be remotely comparable.  But it is good to fire up the team to play someone the equivalent of....CSUN (with a similar NET to these two teams) who we beat in our 2nd game of the season 104-40.  Overconfidence is never a good thing, but I will save my worries for the second game.  We will have a worthy opponent in the second game, and the second game has been our Achilles heel all season.

As far as these two teams are concerned, they both are overjoyed to have made the Big Dance given their records, and the one we play will be even happier to have won a game in Maples Pavilion on Wednesday night.  Their seasons will be made, their fans overjoyed, and while I expect they will do their best, a loss to us won't at all tarnish their unlikely Cinderella stories. 

I really would like to break 100, but we haven't done that for quite some time.

By the way, these two teams represent a flaw in the NCAA tournament system that people in the Pac 12 may not be familiar with.  When an inferior team beats a superior team in the Pac 12 tournament, no problem, since the Pac 12 is sending 7 teams.  Plenty of room to send the tournament finisher and all the other good teams.  When an inferior team beats a superior team in the two leagues of our Friday opponent, the superior team goes home and the inferior team gets the invite, since under no circumstances will they invite 2 teams from such a league.  I really do not like the tournament system for this reason.  It would be like having the World Series determined by a single game.  So we could be playing against the 4th-place finisher of a small league of small schools, while that league's most accomplished team bemoans its tournament loss.  Our tournament loss was not so consequential, by comparison.   Just imagine if UCLA had knocked us out of the NCAAs completely.

Speaking of...article from the other side: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/03/13/s...nt=event25

For the 25 years, I thought I'd jinxed 'em by telling my boss that even though my favorite player, Nygaard, would be missing, "Nothin' to worry about!" Of course, this was before we knew about Folkl. 

For Feaster (and the rest)? The highlight of her basketball career. Wow.

[crackpot]

Preview:

I will return and keep editing this initial post to expand the preview as I learn more, but thought we should get the thread started for our first game in the NCAAs.

Two 16 seeds play each other on Wednesday at Maples, 6pm Pacific, for the privilege of playing Stanford on Friday, 4:30.  So we will have a couple of days to get ready for the winner.

Question for anyone who knows:  will the tickets we are purchasing to attend the first two rounds also admit us to this play-in round on Wednesday?  I will post the answer here once I know.

Sacred Heart is 18-13 overall and is getting back to the NCAAs for the first time in 11 years.  They play in the Northeast conference and beat Farleigh Dickinson, which had a much better record, in their tournament.    They are 258 in NET.

Southern is 18-14 overall.   They play in the Southwestern Conference, and were 4th in their regular season before winning their tournament.  Just like the Pac-12, neither of their league's two best teams competed to represent their league, and Southern actually beat a team with a losing record in the finals.  Southern is 257 in NET, so theoretically they are perfectly matched with Sacred Heart.

These two teams are, frankly, mediocre even in their own leagues before their league tournaments vaulted them over teams with much better records.  They are among the weakest teams in the tournament, and weaker than many many teams that did not make it to the tournament.  Neither of them could hold a candle to the infamous Harvard team of 1998, and worries about another 1/16 upset should be quashed.

So what kind of game could either of these two give us on Friday?  A lot will depend on what kinds of changes Tara has implemented in the wake of our dismal performance against UCLA, and how many of those changes she will be willing to show in what amounts to an exhibition game.  I don't expect to see anything new on Friday, and I do expect to see lots and lots of bench players contributing.  Come Sunday we will get a much better idea of whether, or how, Tara has reacted to our late season woes.

"...in what amounts to an exhibition game..."   Two words for you: "REMEMBER HARVARD!"

I made specific reference to Harvard.  Neither of these two teams are Harvard 1998, which was deliberately underseeded and had a a future pro in Alison Feaster.  The TV gods of the day just thought Stanford vs. Harvard would be cute, and so they demoted Harvard to a 16 to pull it off, when Harvard should have been a few seeds higher--and they really were ticked off.  And our 1 seed was obviously based on having two star players who could no longer play.  Unless Brink and Jones both go down with injuries (say whichever prayers your faith requires) (which is the equivalent of 1998 with Nygaard and Folkl), the situation won't be remotely comparable.  But it is good to fire up the team to play someone the equivalent of....CSUN (with a similar NET to these two teams) who we beat in our 2nd game of the season 104-40.  Overconfidence is never a good thing, but I will save my worries for the second game.  We will have a worthy opponent in the second game, and the second game has been our Achilles heel all season.

As far as these two teams are concerned, they both are overjoyed to have made the Big Dance given their records, and the one we play will be even happier to have won a game in Maples Pavilion on Wednesday night.  Their seasons will be made, their fans overjoyed, and while I expect they will do their best, a loss to us won't at all tarnish their unlikely Cinderella stories. 

I really would like to break 100, but we haven't done that for quite some time.

By the way, these two teams represent a flaw in the NCAA tournament system that people in the Pac 12 may not be familiar with.  When an inferior team beats a superior team in the Pac 12 tournament, no problem, since the Pac 12 is sending 7 teams.  Plenty of room to send the tournament finisher and all the other good teams.  When an inferior team beats a superior team in the two leagues of our Friday opponent, the superior team goes home and the inferior team gets the invite, since under no circumstances will they invite 2 teams from such a league.  I really do not like the tournament system for this reason.  It would be like having the World Series determined by a single game.  So we could be playing against the 4th-place finisher of a small league of small schools, while that league's most accomplished team bemoans its tournament loss.  Our tournament loss was not so consequential, by comparison.   Just imagine if UCLA had knocked us out of the NCAAs completely.

Speaking of...article from the other side: https://www.bostonglobe.com/2023/03/13/s...nt=event25

For the 25 years, I thought I'd jinxed 'em by telling my boss that even though my favorite player, Nygaard, would be missing, "Nothin' to worry about!" Of course, this was before we knew about Folkl. 

For Feaster (and the rest)? The highlight of her basketball career. Wow.