I don't remember that promotion, but that's a great story.

Drake did make the F4 once, in 1969. I guess the Missouri Valley used to be a major conference a long, long time ago.

My friend got tickets to their last NCAA appearance (2008) so we went, figuring "we're never going to see this happen again in our lifetimes." Quite exciting game, but unfortunate for us, a loss in OT when Western Kentucky guy made a ~25 footer at the buzzer.

If you're a coach playing against Iowa why on earth are you assigning anyone to guard Conor McCaffrey? I don't think he's hit a shot yet in 2021 and he's had plenty of wide open looks. Guy has the basketball equivalent of Chuck Knoblauch disease.

Baylor on pause... FSU on pause... Louisville on pause... Santa Clara on pause...

March Madness is in a month lol

This is gonna be such a cluster****


wonder what the o/u is on played games

Torvik also had a tweet iirc that had Ohio State as the last 1 seed.

I'm sure we all already knew Chris Holtmann is an elite coach, but the job he's doing with the current collection of misfit toys is certainly impressive.

Probably will be a trainwreck of epic proportions. All it takes is one high seed to get sidelined to mess everything up. I'm sure the NCAA only really cares about their TV contract, but hey, they'll be the dominant topic of conversation nationwide if things blow up and you can't hardly buy that kind of buzz.

This is the absolutel best Iowa can do with Fran as coach. Just refuses to teach/play defense. Keep trotting out that 2-3 Zone vs shooting teams with two unathletic players at the top (one of them being 6'1'). Literally takes one pass to get Ahrens two open 3's in crunch time of last night's game. A couple possessions later, another wide open Ahrens 3 from one simple pass. GG.

Fran actually has some young players who are decent at D as well. Murray is getting more minutes with the Frederick injury. Perkins and Ullis have both shown they can play when given the opportunity. But no, Fran has to make sure Bohannon gets his 30 minutes/game. Bohannon somehow took like ~3 shots vs Illini until the last minute in a game Frederick didn't play. If he's not going to chuck, wtf is he even doing? Can't create and can't play D. I'd rather him go 0-9 from 3 (which was his statline vs IU) than not shoot at all.

I feel bad for Garza as he rarely gets free/easy baskets near the hoop unless it's a put back. The only player who can somewhat create on his own is Toussaint, who usually gets his minimal minutes when Garza is on the bench (read Bohannon and his 30 minutes).

The main suckers out of this are delusional fans like myself who thought this would be the year they would play some defense. LOL me. It looks like the ceiling is a 4 seed with the opportunity to get waxed by Zaga/Baylor in the s16, if they surprisingly make it that far.

Don't despair - there is a 50% chance you duck Baylor/Gonzaga's "region" and get waxed by them in the F4 instead!

Any publicity is good publicity, right?

Last year, I went to Ireland for St. Patrick's Day (travel was pre-restrictions, but still, oops).

Before I left, I was talking to HR guy at my company about the office pool. Told him I felt there was a zero percent chance the NCAA would cancel the big dance. Too much money, and they've proven time after time they care about that above the athletes.

I was quite shocked to find out on my return they'd cancelled. Thought for sure greed would rule the day.

I Patrick Mccafrey and Keegan Murray are going to be really good defensively for Iowa next year IMO.

Nunge
Pat Mccafrey /Keegan Murray
Wieskamp
Fredrick
Toussaint

I think that will be a good defensive lineup if all are back. If Wieskamp leaves then just play Pat Mc and Murray together which makes it even better.

Appreciate the optimism.


Defense should definitely be better next season, but you have to factor in Fran playing his other son 25-30 min/game. Guessing Wieskamp is gone after this season.

Culver is really playing well lately

If Huggs starts giving more of McCabe's minutes to Bridges, we might actually make a run

WVU and Kansas just played 8 possessions in 54 seconds with 0 combined points lol

I have never seen Wisconsin shoot so poorly, they deserve the beating they're taking.

Watched most of the second half of the Drake/Valpo game. Drake down 7 with about 17:00 left when I came in. Made a nice run to take the lead and held on.

Clearly the better team, but I don't know about #25 nationally. Maybe they had an off day, first time I've seen them this year.

Drake appears to have a couple quite good slasher-type guards. Big men were in some foul trouble, so didn't get much of a view of them. Then good role-player types beyond that. Obviously, lol sample size.

Both teams played good free-throw defense: Drake 9/16, Valpo 7/12. Sigh.

Great win for WV

lead the whole way, KU made a run after halftime to take a 1 point lead and WV put them right back in the bin. Lost like 9 out of our last 10 against them, so feels good.

Gonna need that win too, have six games in a row against ranked teams.

Thank you twitter for the reminder that Boilering Up is in process.

lol, the cameraperson is spending lots of time on shots of Jaden Ivey's rather attractive mom.

CBS has a college basketball podcast I was listening to the other day. They were saying how Wisconsin was a good team we all expected to become a really good team, but instead they just stayed a good team. Good description.

Think so? I believe the top 5 preseason expectation was based on the home stretch of last season before the shutdown when they were an absolute machine, winning 8 games in a row to end up as the top seed in the B1G tournament -- i.e. a really good team. I guess they were only #22 on KenPom though.

Regardless, it's weird to see them not be able to shoot lately, that's one thing you can always count on Wisconsin doing well.

I wonder if Nebraska considers yesterday to be a moral victory -- first game back, they shot 3/17 from 3 and 11/24 on free throws, had 17 turnovers and were outrebounded by 13 ... yet they only lost to Sparty by 10 in East Lansing.

Iowa has the worst defense in the B1G, 130th in AdjD on KenPom.

Seven minutes into the game Indiana has 4 points.

The Archie Miller offense.

LOL Iowa, HOW do you lose that game.

Also: Archie played Lander quite a bit and I finally figured out something he might be able to do to contribute -- it looks like he might be decent at passing.

Not surprising at all. Keep on sticking Bohannon out there for 30-35 minutes each game Fran. At least betting opposing team ML has been solid.

Pups lose. Drake beat by Valpo 74-57.

With upcoming games against UNI and Loyola, I expect more losses.

Still, for us longsuffering fans who were around for the many years when they couldn't even field a competitive, much less winning, squad, this and the last few years have been nice.

This podcast is generally entertaining. They first started talking about this when Northwestern made the tourney and the next year they returned everyone but sucked. Wisconsin and Iowa fit this year I guess. Kenpom's algo must be broke to have Iowa #5.. That team is just mostly crap, can't guard anyone. Garza can't sniff Kaminsky.