Future

[choida]

Wichita state in the first four is unbelievably moronic... How can a team that was ranked before it's conference tourney , and after one loss fall so far off the national rankings... I agree, the first four should have the worst resumes playing, but that wouldn't have much television draw

[WuShock16]

Not sure if this has been brought up, but I wish the NCAA would take the 4 worst resumes of the 68 teams and put them in Dayton, regardless of auto qualifiers or at-large. This would weed out 2 weak teams and send the 2 winners to play a 1 seed the first weekend.

First of all, eight teams go to Dayton. Second of all, there needs to be at-large teams that go to Dayton. If you win your conference tournament, you should be rewarded with a spot in the main draw. Having two at-large games and two conference champion games seems like a fair compromise. This or a proposal to cut auto bids to smaller conferences is a slippery slope that will eventually lead to even more of a tilted field towards P5 schools.

My only wish is that they figure out the schedule to make it somewhat fair for the First Four winners. Having a team arrive at a hotel at 5am is absolutely ridiculous. Fortunately, WSU did have the late game on Thursday to get maximum rest (hasn't always happened with past First Four winners) but then WSU got shafted with the first game on Saturday. I would have liked to have seen what WSU could have done with just a couple more hours of rest. Even switching timeslots with Duke-Yale might have been enough.

[Aargh]

Next year should be a completely different look on the court. FVV's driving off of screens and Baker's shooting off of screens is gone. I think we'll see Shamet driving to the basket and Frankamp creating his shot from the perimeter. More one-on-one than we're used to seeing. The talent, the short shot clock, and the freedom of movement enforcement point towards that.

Here's hoping Morris and Nurger can figure out how to play with fewer fouls so we can keep a post on the floor for 40 minutes.

I'm not down on Kelly like some are. So far, he was better (offensively) at prep school than he's shown here. I think the emphasis on learning D left him with limited opportunities to learn how to use his offensive game at the D1 level. It's my opinion that he was a defensive and rebounding stud by working on that so hard that he had little time left to refine his offense at this level and the pace the D1 game is played. It takes some time to figure out how the ball comes off the backboard (or goes into the hoop) when you're moving faster than when you learned those shots.

Maybe Willis can be the second coming of Carl Hall. We need that. It's easier to project Kelly's game than Willis' game. Right now both Willis and Kelly have potential. I'm a bit more solid on Kelly's potential because he's familiar with Marshall's regimen and he's got the major part of D and boards working. That should give him time to spend more effort on his offense.

Brown has been an enigma. I think both Brown and Frankamp may do better when not playing behind (and deferring to) Baker and VanVleet. The dilemma of taking a decent shot or giving it to one of the AA's has got to be tough. It could have been easy for Brown and Frankamp to question every shot they took when they took the shot.

The potential for better 3-pt shooting is there. Whether it emerges remains to be seen.

With the extra practices and the extra games for a summer international trip, I think Smith will be ready to go at PG at the beginning of the season. May not be sharp or efficient then, but may be the best option at PG at Atlantis.

[shockmonster]

I don't think that the offense will change very much at all. Maybe a tweak or two but Gregg is going to stick with isolating the low post inside first, and then picking and rolling, screening offense imo.

[WuDrWu]

We just need some makers.

A&M being as advertised and CF doing what he should do will help a lot. Landry healthy and Markis stepping forward makes for a dangerous offensive lineup.

[AZ Shocker]

One breath of "fresh air" next season is that we will be "scouted" a bit differently. Especially in the Valley. Whole new team. Adjustments and growing pains will be fun to watch. No leaders heading into next season. Who's gonna settle the team when needed??? Be interesting to see it develope.

[boltforge]

My only wish is that they figure out the schedule to make it somewhat fair for the First Four winners.

Selection Saturday, the four play-in games all on Tuesday, and the winners play the Friday/Sunday cycle.

[Jamar Howard 4 President]

Not sure if this has been brought up, but I wish the NCAA would take the 4 worst resumes of the 68 teams and put them in Dayton, regardless of auto qualifiers or at-large. This would weed out 2 weak teams and send the 2 winners to play a 1 seed the first weekend.

As @WuShock16: alluded to already, this already happens in the current system.

[Dan]

As @WuShock16: alluded to already, this already happens in the current system.

No, they currently assign the worst resumes from the "at-large" teams to Dayton. What I am saying is that they throw out the criteria that allows conference champions to bypass Dayton. They should put the weakest 8 teams (including conference champions) in Dayton and have them compete for the four 16-seed slots. But of course that wouldn't be "fair" and I'm sure all the historic one-and-done conference champions would complain, but hey, at least it would give them a chance to win a tournament game and get more revenue shares. Not to mention, it might make the 16 vs 1 games more interesting to have the #1 seeds playing a team (albeit still a bad team) that just came off a tournament win.

edit: they currently select the last 4 at-large teams + the teams seeded 65-68 for Dayton. This is what I am proposing that they fix and put teams seeded 61-68 in Dayton to compete for the four 16 seeds

[molly jabali]

No, they currently assign the worst resumes from the "at-large" teams to Dayton. What I am saying is that they throw out the criteria that allows conference champions to bypass Dayton. They should put the weakest 8 teams (including conference champions) in Dayton and have them compete for the four 16-seed slots. But of course that wouldn't be "fair" and I'm sure all the historic one-and-done conference champions would complain, but hey, at least it would give them a chance to win a tournament game and get more revenue shares. Not to mention, it might make the 16 vs 1 games more interesting to have the #1 seeds playing a team (albeit still a bad team) that just came off a tournament win.

edit: they currently select the last 4 at-large teams + the teams seeded 65-68 for Dayton. This is what I am proposing that they fix and put teams seeded 61-68 in Dayton to compete for the four 16 seeds

i like this idea....

[WSUwatcher]

If they have to continue the foolishness of Dayton instead of reducing the number of at-large bids to fit into a straight 64-team field -- and we all know they will, because it manufactures an extra TV event and source of revenue -- they should just automatically place the teams in regionals where the winners will then play Friday and (potentially) Sunday.

That's an easy and obvious common sense step, and it reduces the possibility of something like WSU's egregious schedule this season (although it can still happen to whoever plays the Wednesday night Dayton card, so someone still needs actually to be paying attention between the NCAA and the TV people). Fix that first, and then move on to all the other tinkering.

[Heinro]

Probably a good point, Heinro -- but they wouldn't have done that to Duke or any of a number of other big name P5 teams; for those guys the NCAA pays attention to TV times and slots. For WSU, they just put them in someplace and let the chips fall where they may. The Dayton-Providence swing was poor logistics, though, and WSU deserved better.

I generally disagree with this. I don't buy into any conspiracy theory. I think the bracketing had us go to Providence after Dayton, where we just simply had the unfortunate luck of playing at the same site as Duke, therefore we got the early game. Same thing would have happened to Arizona.

Whether WSU deserved to be in the play-in game or not is an entirely different discussion, but the travel and game time was not some fix against us. It was simply a product of being in the play-in game and being at the same site as Duke. Holy Cross had to go from Dayton to Spokane.

[WuShock16]

edit: they currently select the last 4 at-large teams + the teams seeded 65-68 for Dayton. This is what I am proposing that they fix and put teams seeded 61-68 in Dayton to compete for the four 16 seeds

And I disagree with that. Sending 8 small conference champions to Dayton is basically telling them to win their conference tournament championship game again. Winning your conference tournament should earn a team a spot into the main bracket. As I said, having four at-large and four conference champions is probably a good compromise.

Having eight small conference champions also makes the Dayton tickets not as intriguing to buy. Part of what makes Dayton a great location (from a fan standpoint) is that you now are seeing at-large teams who are capable of making tournament runs (see VCU and LaSalle as examples). Adding the at-large teams made other cities bid on this round. However, since Dayton took on the play-in games when nobody else wanted it, the NCAA rewarded Dayton for its loyalty and kept the games there.

[im4wsu]

The thinking that the Dayton games are play-in games or not games in the tournament is totally inconsistent with the NCAA's view where they were designated for 2013-14 and 2014-15 as Round 1, but have now reverted back. Since they earn the same dollars as any other tournament game, that also reflects that these Dayton games are part of the tournament. It is perception and how the fans/media talk about it. Changing the nomenclature to Round 1 didin't work, but perhaps there is some name that would work better than "play-in."

[wusphlash]

If I Were King


Dayton would go away. We go back to 64.
No team would play a first or second round game within 100 miles of their campus.
Teams must finish above .500 in their conference to be given an at large berth.