NCAA Tournament - WSU vs Drake Pre-Game Predictions and Discussions

[pie n eye]

What's that have to do with anything? You responded to a post that was clearly referring to conference records.

The OP said “best team in the AAC” not “conference champion from the AAC”. There is a difference and I think Houston is ultimately the better team even though they didn’t win the regular season championship.

[MikeKennedyRulZ]

Drake at 100% is maybe as good as Loyola, if not better.

Maybe, but the issue is we don't know because they haven't played ANYBODY outside of Loyola.

[MikeKennedyRulZ]

Uhhh. Don't shoot this messenger. But we aren't even close to the best team in the American. But I love me some Shox!

Won the regular season conference title. Beat the "best" team in the conference. One of only two teams from the conference to make the NCAA tourney. Sounds close to the best team in the conference to me...

[ShockingButTrue]

Maybe, but the issue is we don't know because they haven't played ANYBODY outside of Loyola.

Right. You don't know. The people in Vegas who get paid to do this do know, and they say Drake, without their general, and with Hemphill back after 6 weeks is a 50/50 game against the Shocks. I'm just the messenger.

But, anyone with even half a brain could watch Drake at full strength this year and understand that's a pretty good team. Anyone that would think otherwise is not even worth having an intelligent conversation with, especially when that person hasn't watched Drake play more than even one time.

The experts have spoken...

[MikeKennedyRulZ]

Right. You don't know. The people in Vegas who get paid to do this do know, and they say Drake, without their general, and with Hemphill back after 6 weeks is a 50/50 game against the Shocks. I'm just the messenger.

But, anyone with even half a brain could watch Drake at full strength this year and understand that's a pretty good team. Anyone that would think otherwise is not even worth having an intelligent conversation with, assuming they've watched Drake more than once.

The experts have spoken...

[The Mad Hatter]

Maybe, but the issue is we don't know because they haven't played ANYBODY outside of Loyola.

And they never even had to play Loyola on the road despite playing them 3 times. Obviously being without Hemphill for all 3 and without Penn for the last meeting makes it hard to evaluate how they compare to Loyola, but losing by 27 at home, winning by 1 in overtime at home, and losing by 10 on a neutral site doesn't scream that they are clearly as good at Loyola even accounting for the injuries. This is especially true since they had to play 1 less game in the MVC tournament than Loyola due to the UNI debacle.

[Horn28Clem30]

Right. You don't know. The people in Vegas who get paid to do this do know, and they say Drake, without their general, and with Hemphill back after 6 weeks is a 50/50 game against the Shocks. I'm just the messenger.

But, anyone with even half a brain could watch Drake at full strength this year and understand that's a pretty good team. Anyone that would think otherwise is not even worth having an intelligent conversation with, especially when that person hasn't watched Drake play more than even one time.

The experts have spoken...

People in Vegas aren't paid to get the line exact, they're paid to set a line to get the most amount of action on each side. Typically they're one in the same, but not always.

[molly jabali]

I listened to their newspaper guy last night and I got the impression that this is not your grandfathers’ Drake....much longer, more athletic, etc

[pie n eye]

Won the regular season conference title. Beat the "best" team in the conference. One of only two teams from the conference to make the NCAA tourney. Sounds close to the best team in the conference to me...

I think the case can be made for WSU. It’s not crazy.

Head to Head: 1-1
Best Home Win: Houston (5 NET), Texas Tech (16 NET)
Best Road Win: Ole Miss (53 NET), SMU (65 NET)
KP: 74, 6

The metrics have Houston well ahead of WSU. I am taking such metrics with a grain of salt this year but based on my eye test I agree with them in this instance.

I think the biggest advantage Houston had this year over WSU is continuity. Most if not all of their main guys had at least one year in the program.

They also had a relatively normal schedule considering the circumstances. They at least got one warm up game against Lamar before facing tougher opponents.

[Shockm]

Uhhh. Don't shoot this messenger. But we aren't even close to the best team in the American. But I love me some Shox!

Why did Memphis lose to Tulsa?

We looked bad against Memphis. I really was hoping we could play them again, to see if that was an outlier game. We looked pretty good against Houston in both games. The second one, we had better rebounding effort. We didn't play SMU. If we rebound like we did against Houston, we can beat a lot of teams, but we don't always show up in that area. For some reason, I think that we don't emphasize that every game and this team needs it emphasized. I think that if we play our best, we can play with anyone.

[Stickboy46]

Drake is expected to have Hemphill back per the coach. How rusty he will be is another question

[pie n eye]

Right. You don't know. The people in Vegas who get paid to do this do know, and they say Drake, without their general, and with Hemphill back after 6 weeks is a 50/50 game against the Shocks. I'm just the messenger.

But, anyone with even half a brain could watch Drake at full strength this year and understand that's a pretty good team. Anyone that would think otherwise is not even worth having an intelligent conversation with, especially when that person hasn't watched Drake play more than even one time.

The experts have spoken...

I agree Drake is a good team that shouldn’t be taken lightly even though I’ve only seen them play one time.

The people in Vegas get paid to make sure they get as close to an equal amount of bets for each team as possible not to predict outcomes of games. That’s why you see lines change if more bets come in for one team vs the other.

[OregonShocker]

Drake is likely to have the same attitude/talent/drive that we had back in the MVC days. they're tired of hearing "you played nobody" or "you play in a weak conference." But that was a dangerous approach to take against us; let's not fall victim to the same in reverse.

[Shocktoberfest]

What's that have to do with anything? You responded to a post that was clearly referring to conference records.

No biggie. I read the best team to mean the best team. But I can see how he meant the best team in conference. I get it. My misread if that's the point. Can't we all just get along?

I agree totally that we should hope the first place AAC team could/should beat the 2nd place MVC team. We are in agreement.

[WuDrWu]

Bottom line, this is an experienced, good, athletic (by comparison to other Valley teams) and very well coached team that has won a ton (including at KState) this year. They are plenty good to win and advance, and if they do, this fan will be cheering loudly for the Geese.

Go Shocks!