Buckeye Fan 19

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“Nebraska takes its first lead”

How do you frick up a call that bad?

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I actually think he’s been calling a pretty good game too. :lol: But yeah, pretty bad time for an accidental mix-up.

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Didn't the committee used to have a neutral court policy and would go out of their way to make sure a school didn't have a home advantage such as Houston playing at Houston?

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They still have the rule, but Rice is the host, not U of Houston. Pretty BS, technically it’s legit by letter of the law but not spirit.

Also gave 10-seed Mizzou in St. Louis, and 3-seed Illinois potentially playing 6-seed UNC in South Carolina. Committee needs to do a better job thinking about location. There’s always weird stuff they do every year.

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What a bunch of bums for having a SINGLE bad day out of 32 games.

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I guess it depends on what your definition of “bad day” is. In addition to the UMass loss, they have a 5 pt home win over Mercyhurst, OT win against UNC Asheville, 3 pt home win against Akron (by far their best win), OT home win against Buffalo, OT win against Kent St, 2 point home win against UMass, 2 point win against Buffalo (different than OT game), 2 pt win against WMU, 2 pt home win against Toledo and OT win against Ohio. I think most fans of typical bubble teams would be furious with any single one of those performances, and they have 11.

That’s part of the reason the bubble talk is so loud. It isn’t just because of the schedule (which is terrible), it’s also that they’ve struggled quite a bit against some really bad teams. If they had the schedule they had, and only 3-4 close calls in the perfect regular season it’s one thing. But when you have 10…

Their KenPom ranking is 93rd. I can’t imagine there’s ever been at large even close to that low. (For comparison, since somebody brought up St Joe’s and Wichita State, those teams finished 3rd and 6th in KenPom, respectively.) I can’t imagine an at large has finished with anything near 0 quad 1 wins and only 2 quad 2/quad 1 wins.

That said, they did finish the regular season undefeated. So they prob earned a spot, even though I don’t think they’re good at all. The First Four seems fair. That way, the committee can say you technically earned a bid to the tourney and were selected by going undefeated… but to get to the “real” March Madness / bracket portion, you have to beat somebody. Even just a mediocre power conference team.

I think they’re First Four. Think they maybe had a chance to avoid it if they had lost to Akron in the championship, but UMass in the first game is a brutal loss to take.

But with that said, while their schedule is absolute trash (and I don’t mean “ACC football schedule” trash. I mean, it is actually abundantly awful. No Power conference opponents at all, no opponents who will make it as an at large…), I can’t see a team who went undefeated in the regular season left out completely of a 68-team tournament, even though I think there are teams that will be left out who are better.

Did some quick calculations on when the run would need to be scored for U.S. to advance if Mexico wins in extra innings. As has been established, if the game doesn’t go to extras and Mexico wins, U.S. advances if Mexico scores at least 5.

U.S. is out if Mexico wins and scores 4 or fewer, or scores exactly 5 but wins in extras (the lone exception being if Mexico walk it off with no outs in the bottom of the 10th, which would advance it to the next tiebreaker).

If Mexico wins with 6 runs, the game would have to end with 1 out in the bottom of the 11th or earlier for the U.S. to advance. If they win with 7 runs, they’d have to win with 0 outs in the bottom of the 13th or earlier. If they win with 8 runs, they’d have to win in the 14th inning or earlier.

You rarely see a 100-meter dash decided by 0.01 seconds, and this occurred over 26.2 miles. :lol:

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Are they wanting America to root against them? Right after the buzzer they flipped off all the Ohio fans

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I’ll give the players a little bit of slack (though it wasn’t a great look, of course). They just accomplished an historic feat, it’s a huge rivalry for that level, and I’m sure they were receiving plenty of comments from the OU student section about their moms/sisters/girlfriends (and not that they’re nice ladies…)

The coach is a douche though. In his interview post-game, he couldn’t help but make snarky comments about the officiating. Whether true or not, dude, you won the game. You just accomplished a remarkable achievement. And one of your thoughts is still to bitch about the refs? Earlier in the year, he broke/vandalized Western Michigan DJ’s equipment when throwing a temper tantrum walking to the locker room after getting a technical at halftime.

He comes across as a very tough guy to root for.

It’s a lot for Buffalo to give up, but they were in pretty desperate need. I think DJ Moore still is a very high-quality WR. He was great in Carolina, and ironically had the best season of his career with Fields when he was the Bears clear #1 target.

But since then, the Bears have added a lot of weapons (Odunze, Loveland, Burden) and for whatever reason (maybe partly due to all those other added pieces), he and Caleb rarely seemed to click. I don’t think they disliked each other or anything, but they were rarely on the same page. But I think he still has that talent in him and will absolutely thrive with Allen.

Bears don’t need him anymore with Loveland, Odunze, Burden and Kmet (particularly given the aforementioned chemistry issues between he and Caleb). The cap space and 2nd rounder is more valuable. I think it could be a win-win for both teams.

U.S. and Canada current rosters would each probably win in 5 or 6 games in a 7-game series over Russia’s current roster. So sure, in a one-game scenario they could’ve pulled a minor upset. But U.S. and Canada are a notch above. Russia is more comparable to a Sweden/Finland level at the moment.

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As an Avs fan, myself, I'm not too impressed with Nate's postgame comments about Canada being the better team. You had more shots for one game. That doesn't make you the better team. Goalies are part of the team. You lost, Nate. Whining won't change that.

I don't blame him for being upset at losing. I appreciate guys caring. But the whole "who do you think was the better team" stuff is never a good look.

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It’s particularly a bad look for MacKinnon who missed a goal that 50% of this board would’ve scored, and then was bullied off the puck by Werenski in OT which led to the GWG.

Along those lines, while the Canadian skaters outplayed the U.S. skaters overall yesterday, when the game was ultimately on the line, Canada had arguably the three best skaters in the world on the ice, and Z took the puck from MacKinnon with Makar/McDavid late on the backcheck to Hughes. You could argue the U.S. skaters earned it / “deserved” it more than the Canadians based on that play alone.