College Basketball Countdown

[R to the OB]

Just looking at Creighton's prediction, they call Steve Ferrarini and Tyler Clement legitimate options (both are walk-ons who won't see much of the court), make no mention of Zach Hanson (who will be a MAJOR factor this year) and Ricky Kreklow (who will also see quite a bit of court this year), and call Artino a "traditional bruiser in the paint" (completely laughable - he has shown little toughness, oversells contact, and is more "finesse" than power).

[Bill Marsh]

of course all this assumes this list is even close to accurate, which it's not.

Not sure how you can say that. They were actually pessimistic on Dayton last year- had them as the last team in.

Also, when you get past the next 4-5 teams- you realistically start seeing what the bubble is going to look like. I mean I know teams in that late 50's early 60's had teams like Providence and SMU last year. basketball isn't like other sports where teams come out of the blue normally.

So why do they bother playing the games?

[cu blujs]

Just looking at Creighton's prediction, they call Steve Ferrarini and Tyler Clement legitimate options (both are walk-ons who won't see much of the court), make no mention of Zach Hanson (who will be a MAJOR factor this year) and Ricky Kreklow (who will also see quite a bit of court this year), and call Artino a "traditional bruiser in the paint" (completely laughable - he has shown little toughness, oversells contact, and is more "finesse" than power).

I wonder where they would rate us if they knew Steve Ferrarini has left the team to focus on academics? After all, he did score 18 points last season

[billyjack]

of course all this assumes this list is even close to accurate, which it's not.

Not sure how you can say that. They were actually pessimistic on Dayton last year- had them as the last team in.

Also, when you get past the next 4-5 teams- you realistically start seeing what the bubble is going to look like. I mean I know teams in that late 50's early 60's had teams like Providence and SMU last year. basketball isn't like other sports where teams come out of the blue normally.

I haven't looked at their whole list but I read the Dan Henner Preview of the A10 and he has Davidson near the bottom (11th and hoping for the NIT) so having them 75th seems suspect to me, and in general they rarely are that well written or accurate in terms of rosters, so I would take this list with a huge grain of salt.

I agree with hoya. A list like this can be fun, but this one is flawed and has pretty blatant mistakes. And unfortunately for all of us, this thread is designed to never die, because we're going to have to countdown all 100 teams.

In similar threads on the other board, I used to mention the basketball predictions of my semi-fictitious barber Frankie from Pawtucket. Frankie is an older guy that's been following sports for 70 years, so he has 30-40 more years of experience following this stuff than many of the know-it-all pundit gasbags (Lunardi, etc)... I think I'm going start an "Frankie the Barber Top-100 Countdown Thread" shortly.

[R to the OB]

Just looking at Creighton's prediction, they call Steve Ferrarini and Tyler Clement legitimate options (both are walk-ons who won't see much of the court), make no mention of Zach Hanson (who will be a MAJOR factor this year) and Ricky Kreklow (who will also see quite a bit of court this year), and call Artino a "traditional bruiser in the paint" (completely laughable - he has shown little toughness, oversells contact, and is more "finesse" than power).

I wonder where they would rate us if they knew Steve Ferrarini has left the team to focus on academics? After all, he did score 18 points last season

We wouldn't even be in the top 144... Probably won't win a game without him. Might as well just call it a season now and forfeit all of our games.

[stever20]

I think it's just so comical your view on guys like Lunardi. They are far more accurate than you EVER want to give them credit.

I mean case in point- look at Lunardi's bracketology from last November..... before a game was played...

1's- Kentucky, Mich St, Louisville, Duke
2's- Okla St, Florida, Arizona, Kansas
3's- Michigan, Syracuse, UNC, Ohio St
4's- Marquette, UConn, Gonzaga, VCU

15 of the 16 teams made the tourney(only Marquette didn't) and all 15 that did were top 9 seeds. Of the 15- 8 finished as top 4 seeds. Sounds pretty good to me. But you don't want to hear that at all. You want to keep your narrative that folks don't know anything.

[R to the OB]

I think it's just so comical your view on guys like Lunardi. They are far more accurate than you EVER want to give them credit.

I mean case in point- look at Lunardi's bracketology from last November..... before a game was played...

1's- Kentucky, Mich St, Louisville, Duke
2's- Okla St, Florida, Arizona, Kansas
3's- Michigan, Syracuse, UNC, Ohio St
4's- Marquette, UConn, Gonzaga, VCU

15 of the 16 teams made the tourney(only Marquette didn't) and all 15 that did were top 9 seeds. Of the 15- 8 finished as top 4 seeds. Sounds pretty good to me. But you don't want to hear that at all. You want to keep your narrative that folks don't know anything.

Um, almost all of these programs are bluebloods - traditional powerhouses. I could vomit up a similar list without any knowledge of the makeup of these teams and be pretty close too...
The only one on here with a narrative is you... the sky isn't falling on the Big East anytime soon.

[hoyahooligan]

I think it's just so comical your view on guys like Lunardi. They are far more accurate than you EVER want to give them credit.

I mean case in point- look at Lunardi's bracketology from last November..... before a game was played...

1's- Kentucky, Mich St, Louisville, Duke
2's- Okla St, Florida, Arizona, Kansas
3's- Michigan, Syracuse, UNC, Ohio St
4's- Marquette, UConn, Gonzaga, VCU

15 of the 16 teams made the tourney(only Marquette didn't) and all 15 that did were top 9 seeds. Of the 15- 8 finished as top 4 seeds. Sounds pretty good to me. But you don't want to hear that at all. You want to keep your narrative that folks don't know anything.

Let's See Real top 4 seeds and where they were predicted:
1s: Florida(2), Arizona(2), Wichita St(5), Virginia(6)
2s Kansas(2), Wisconsin(6), Michigan (3) Villanova(9)
3s Iowa St(11), Duke(1), Creighton(6), Syracuse(3)
4s Michigan St(1), Louisville(1), UCLA(7), San Diego St(12)

so only got 7 of the top 16 right and only 2 on the right line.
Kentucky predicted 1 ended up 8 seed
Michigan st predicted 1 ended up 4 seed
Louisville predicted 1 ended up 4 seed
Duke predicted 1 ended up 3 seed
Oklahoma St predicted 2 ended up 9 seed
Florida predicted 2 ended up a 1 seed
Arizona predicted 2 ended up a 1 seed
Kansas predicted 2 ended up a 2 seed
Michigan predicted 3 ended up a 2 seed
Syracuse predicted a 3 ended up a 3 seed
UNC predicted a 3 ended up a 6 seed
Ohio St predicted a 3 ended up a 6 seed
Marquette predicted a 4 seed ended up missing tournament
Uconn predicted a 4 seed ended up a 7 seed
Gonzaga predicted a 4 seed ended up an 8 seed
VCU predicted a 4 seed ended up a 5 seed

Teams he predicted would make the tournament that didn't *=Autobid prediction:
Marquette
St. John's
Georgetown
ND
Drexel
akron*
Oral Roberts*
Boise St
LSU
Boston U*
Stony Brook*
Georgia St
La Salle
davidson*
Wright St*
Alabama
Indiana
Wagner*
Belmont*
UNLV
FGCU*
Louisiana Tech*
Charleston Southern*
Norfolk St*

Teams that made the tournament that he did not predict:
Albany
SF Austin
Tulsa
W. Michigan
Dayton
E. Kentucky
Costal Carolina
GW
Delaware
NC Central
St. Joes
Milwaukee
Texas
Arizona St
Mercer
NC St
American
LA- Lafayette
Nebraska
Oklahoma(5)
Umass (6)

these last two being he most glaring

[stever20]

If you look at Lunardi's bracket start of the year to the last one- he missed 10 teams out of 36 at larges at the start of the year. Only 2 top 7 seeds he missed on (Marquette and Georgetown). His last bracket- he missed 1 team- SMU- as most all bracketologists did. And of the final 8- he had 6 of them in his preseason top 16. That's not bad at all.... People on here want to bash on him big time- but that's just not accurate any more. He's a top 25 bracketologist- folks don't want to hear about that though.

Folks always want to bash on the preseason predictions/polls- but fail to acknowledge end of the day they are pretty damn accurate. Not only in hoops- but football as well. These guys get paid to know what they are talking about.

And what the heck does this have to do with the Big East. At all.

[stever20]

looking at the list-
2 teams he predicted perfect
4 teams within 1 seed line.
1 team within 2 seed lines
5 teams within 3 seed lines

for the flipping preseason- that's not bad at all... 12 teams within 3 seed lines. A lot of times that's just 1-2 games. Also folks disagreed with the committee a lot on how they seeded Louisville and Kentucky- no way they should have been a 4 and 8 seed.

Of the 13 auto bid conferences he missed- 7 were in the conference title game. So it's not like they were way off. I think some more were the conferences #1 seed in the tourney but lost before the final.