Purple Pile Driver said:

Hey what’s the story with pig tails? Did Undie piss him off by playing that MVC kid so many minutes? Little Undie get in his face? Cash grab and the beloved can’t compete? What’s up?

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Vassar69 said:

I was kidding, it’s 100% not Collins he’s not even on their radar. Buzz Williams wants out of A&M. I’d bet that’s who gets it if they can get the money and NIL sorted out for him.

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AdamOnFirst said:

Was talking with somebody from a traditionally strong mid major conference with a history until very recently of multiple annual bids and many notable Cinderella runs over many decades. He believed that within a few days of the portal opening only 4 of the 40 guys on the various all conference lists were returning to the league the following year. Many were graduating, but the rest were all transferring to seek NIL bucks in the power 5.

I'm a big supporter of guys getting the opportunity to get paid, but that's devastating and sort of a bummer for these leagues. They get absolutely picked clean every single year.

On the other hand, all these dominant top teams do mean that the games are largely very good. Upsets early are fun, but the Cinderella runs often result in clunkers eventually when you get a lower seed running into a dominant team or two Cinderellas against each other. The Butler UConn championship was a game that stands out in my mind as a genuinely gross game between two CInderellas playing like pumpkins. Next weekend should be a real slugfest promising some extremely good basketball.

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Secho99 said:

I think there's an unnecessary (at this point) amount of hand-wringing being done about four 1-seeds making the Final Four. For that outcome to happen twice in 40 years doesn't seem excessive. I know people have their theories about why it's happening now but unless it becomes a pattern it's just as likely that this year is an anomaly rather than an indication of something else. The top seeds are the top seeds for a reason, so this outcome should happen at least some of the time.

Historically mid-major underdogs win with guard play, mostly by shooting the ball well from outside. I can't find the tweet, but I read something about mid-major underdogs shooting a historically low percentage from 3 in this tournament despite being collectively as good at shooting in the regular season as past mid-major crops. Sometimes variance swings to the favorites.

There's also the nugget that all 4 teams left are in the top 10 all-time (since 1997) in the KenPom ratings, which makes it even more likely they'd all get this far. Should also be noted that 3 of the 4 teams returned between 69-82% of their minutes from last year, with Duke being the exception, and their best guys are 3 freshmen and a junior who's been with them the whole time.

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