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Unofficial 2011 NCAA Tournament Thread

What's your definition of best?

To me best means going undefeated in 6 games against the top teams as determined by an extensive season.
 
Do you think that the best team always wins? If VCU and Kansas played each other 100 times, how many times do you think each team would win? The NCAA tournament has an incredibly high variance factor that some of you are dismissing completely.
 
Is UNC not required to dribble the ball within 15 feet of the basket? Is this a new rule?
 
PhDeac said:
No. It doesn't. 12 or 13 games against whoever over the course of Sept to Dec doesn't determine which two teams are the best compared to 5 (or 6) games against the top teams in the country over the last 3 weeks of the season.
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If 12 games during the entire season isn't enough to determine the two best teams then I don't see how 4 games over a couple of weeks determines the best four.

You also realize none of the final four teams played the same opponents, right?
 
OliveGardenDeac said:
Do you think that the best team always wins? If VCU and Kansas played each other 100 times, how many times do you think each team would win? The NCAA tournament has an incredibly high variance factor that some of you are dismissing completely.
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There isn't a sport in America that guarantees the "best" team wins every year. You could turn the tournament into best of 7 series and you wouldn't guarantee the best team won.
 
ProbationDeac said:
There isn't a sport in America that guarantees the "best" team wins every year.
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Of course, but as 724 was originally saying football probably does a better job at it than the NCAA tournament.

And again, I don't think anyone here is arguing that football has the preferable system. I wouldn't trade the NCAAT for anything else out there.
 
PhDeac said:
What's your definition of best?

To me best means going undefeated in 6 games against the top teams as determined by an extensive season.
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To me best is the long term result which is impossible to measure at least with current technology for college basketball.

For example let's talk about a hand of poker. AA is the better hand indisputably than KK. But KK will beat AA 1 out of 5 hands. If we simulated 50,000 hands, the number of times AA would win would be very, very close to 4 out of 5 and the number of times KK will win would be very, very close to 1 out of 5. But in any single stretch of 5 hands in that 50,000, it is actually likely that KK would win at least 3/5.

What we have in the NCAA tournament is a tiny sample size, like a random 5 hand stretch out of 50,000. Anything can happen in those 5 hands. But if we simulated the tournament 50,000 times, the best team in the country would make the final four or win the tournament the plurality of the times, then the 2nd best team would win the second number of times, etc, etc.

The NCAA tournament is a hell of a lot of fun. A lot of the reason for that is that literally anything can happen in the short run. But it's important to understand that the short run can often be very, very different than the long term reality.
 
ProbationDeac said:
There isn't a sport in America that guarantees the "best" team wins every year. You could turn the tournament into best of 7 series and you wouldn't guarantee the best team won.
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Exactly, that's my whole point. When you and PH say that Butler and VCU are 2 of the best 4 teams in the country though, that's just not true. In the real world, there is no tournament or bowl system or whatever that can be devised to always reward the best teams. But the NCAA tournament has more variance than most of the other systems. The NBA is probably the least variance overall. Plus in general, basketball is a much higher variance sport than football.
 
The NCAA tournament is great for generating excitement and upsets, but is a poor way to determine who the best team is. Now I don't think it should be changed, but you have to agree there is a huge amount of variance.
 
Forest said:
Of course, but as 724 was originally saying football probably does a better job at it than the NCAA tournament.

And again, I don't think anyone here is arguing that football has the preferable system. I wouldn't trade the NCAAT for anything else out there.
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Football puts more value on a select maybe 10 schools who really compete for the national championship. Even then it takes one bad game and you are out of the running for the championship and if something goes wrong in the championship game the "better" team might not win.
 
OliveGardenDeac said:
Exactly, that's my whole point. When you and PH say that Butler and VCU are 2 of the best 4 teams in the country though, that's just not true. In the real world, there is no tournament or bowl system or whatever that can be devised to always reward the best teams. But the NCAA tournament has more variance than most of the other systems. The NBA is probably the least variance overall. Plus in general, basketball is a much higher variance sport than football.
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I never said VCU or Butler were of the 4 best teams in the country. My point was the NCAA tournament in my opinion is not worse then any other playoff system. It's up to every team to show up and play. If a "better" school doesn't show up guess what? They lose.
 
I honestly can't remember the last time before today that I pulled for Calipari.
 
how was there not a foul on that drive? then makeup call on the rebound.
 
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