Duke does not always get the easiest bracket

[Saguaro Cat]

Yes, they got a nice gift last year. But here is their draw 4 of the past 5 years.

2014. They got put in the region of death with us. They were a three seed. With undefeated #1 seed Wichita State. And the best#2 seed in Michigan. And the best#4 seed Louisville. And all of those teams would have gotten the home court advantage in Indianapolis.

2013. They were a #2 seed. And they got matched with the #1 overall seed Louisville. They got sent to Indianapolis with possible #3 seed Michigan state that is less than a four hour drive away.

2012. They were a two seed. And again, they were matched with clear#1 overall seed Kentucky. Baylor was the toughest #3 that year was also on their side of the region.

2011. They were a #1. They got shipped 2000 miles away to play the best#2 seed San Diego State. In Anaheim California.

You can quibble if all of these were the hardest roads that year. I think so. But they are clearly not the easiest. So can we please stop with the whining that Duke always gets the easy road in the tournament.

 

[UKWildcats#8]

They did in 2010 and 2015...they take advantage when they do get a favorable one in a big way. I agree the myth they do every year is a bit tiresome.

 

[anon_013cn8yrfncx2]

2012 -- Baylor is the kind of team who could never beat Duke. Total coaching mismatch. 2014 was a TV bracket and Duke owns Michigan under Beilein

 

[UKWildcats#8]

2012 -- Baylor is the kind of team who could never beat Duke. Total coaching mismatch. 2014 was a TV bracket and Duke owns Michigan under Beilein

Yeah, but in 2012 they had UK in their bracket and would have lost by 15-20 to UK.

 

[JohnnyGentle]

2012 -- Baylor is the kind of team who could never beat Duke. Total coaching mismatch. 2014 was a TV bracket and Duke owns Michigan under Beilein

except for a bogus charge taken by that lurching stiff zoubek, baylor probably beats duke in 2010

the final that year was a coaching mismatch. and not in duke's favor

he had his player--singler iirc--miss intentionally up 2, and hayward's ensuing 35 footer damn near went in. pretty dopey

 

[jameslee32]

4 words: Why do you care?

 

[jameischrist25]

Good. Hope that POS barn of a gym catches fire. #stillmad

 

[jameslee32]

Pretty sure the top overall seed is systematically slotted into the easiest bracket. lol


Sure didn't look that way last year.

 

[mjj_2K]

I think what happened in 2010 and last year is that Duke was the beneficiary of the idiotic emphasis on geography. With such a huge chunk of the best teams being east of the Mississippi, you can make a very strong argument that a team is better off being the 3rd or 4th one seed.

If they just go down the seeds in order and send the higher seeds to the closer regions, what's likely to happen when so many of the best teams are so close together? You get regions like the Midwest in 14 (which happened to have the #3 one seed, but still- it was ludicrously unbalanced), when, by the NCAA's own ratings, you had the 2nd best 2 seed, the best 3, the best 4, the 2nd best 5, the best 7, the best 8, and the best 9. Or, on the flip side, like the 2012 West, where you had the worst 1 seed, the worst 2, the worst 4, the worst 5, the 2nd worst 6, the worst 7, the 2nd worst 8, and the worst 9. If the selection committee is even close to right, it's almost inevitable that you end up with regions that are wildly more or less difficult to win if geography is the #1 factor.

Duke hit that sweet spot twice. Maybe UK will some day, though I'm not holding my breath.

 

[JohnnyGentle]

i went to two high school state playoff games yesterday

when i saw middle school kids in duke gear i wanted to swat their sodas out of their hands and step on their toes

what a terrible, terrible ending to last year. obviously the small cadre of nitwits still pining for kyle wheelchair didn't pay much attention to that regional final

 

[JohnnyGentle]

ps i guess cal has bigger fish to fry--or catch--but i was really impressed with '17 2g lonnie walker

30 points on 13 fga. unselfish, great vision, very smooth

nova or iu, they say

 

[*dezyDECO*]

except for a bogus charge taken by that lurching stiff zoubek, baylor probably beats duke in 2010

the final that year was a coaching mismatch. and not in duke's favor

he had his player--singler iirc--miss intentionally up 2, and hayward's ensuing 35 footer damn near went in. pretty dopey

Absolutely... and IIRC both players had 4 fouls, so of course the whistle went against Baylor. zoubek made a couple of key plays after that, when he should've been out of the game, instead of Baylor's player. In a big game, has a crucial -is it a charge/is it a block- ever gone against dook?

Anyway, I tend to say that dook gets the easy bracket, just like I say dook gets all the calls. I will continue to say it, generally speaking, even though dook has not gone 40-0 and won the NC the past umpteen seasons.

 

[TortElvisII]

Yes, they got a nice gift last year. But here is their draw 4 of the past 5 years.

2014. They got put in the region of death with us. They were a three seed. With undefeated #1 seed Wichita State. And the best#2 seed in Michigan. And the best#4 seed Louisville. And all of those teams would have gotten the home court advantage in Indianapolis.

2013. They were a #2 seed. And they got matched with the #1 overall seed Louisville. They got sent to Indianapolis with possible #3 seed Michigan state that is less than a four hour drive away.

2012. They were a two seed. And again, they were matched with clear#1 overall seed Kentucky. Baylor was the toughest #3 that year was also on their side of the region.

2011. They were a #1. They got shipped 2000 miles away to play the best#2 seed San Diego State. In Anaheim California.

You can quibble if all of these were the hardest roads that year. I think so. But they are clearly not the easiest. So can we please stop with the whining that Duke always gets the easy road in the tournament.

I think what happened in 2010 and last year is that Duke was the beneficiary of the idiotic emphasis on geography. With such a huge chunk of the best teams being east of the Mississippi, you can make a very strong argument that a team is better off being the 3rd or 4th one seed.

If they just go down the seeds in order and send the higher seeds to the closer regions, what's likely to happen when so many of the best teams are so close together? You get regions like the Midwest in 14 (which happened to have the #3 one seed, but still- it was ludicrously unbalanced), when, by the NCAA's own ratings, you had the 2nd best 2 seed, the best 3, the best 4, the 2nd best 5, the best 7, the best 8, and the best 9. Or, on the flip side, like the 2012 West, where you had the worst 1 seed, the worst 2, the worst 4, the worst 5, the 2nd worst 6, the worst 7, the 2nd worst 8, and the worst 9. If the selection committee is even close to right, it's almost inevitable that you end up with regions that are wildly more or less difficult to win if geography is the #1 factor.

Duke hit that sweet spot twice. Maybe UK will some day, though I'm not holding my breath.

Let me explain this the best I can:

Duke road to final four...Ranked Teams in Bold
1986 16 8 12 7
1988 15 7 11 1
1989 15 7 11 1
1990 14 6 7 1
1991 15 7 11 4
1992 16 9 4 2 an anomaly for them.
1994 15 7 6 1
1999 16 9 12 6
2001 16 9 4 6
2004 16 8 5 7

That is 40 games to the final four. Ten final fours. 9 ranked teams. Back in the 80's Duke kept going East and eastern teams were down after 1985. Their bracket got busted repeatedly. Twice we were the team that failed to advance opening it up for them in 1994 and in 2001. Our bracket tends to hold together much better. Duke has been blessed either by incredible luck or geography or........?

 

[hotelblue]

this is what i'll say for duke. they had tough draws back when. they actually did. k had to beat the boob to get to one ff. the committee screws everyone for ratings. the better you are the more you get screwed. that's why we get screwed the most. the difference is lately duke when they have a real title contender or progress through the year to look like one, gets easier regions in terms of matchups, location, and styles of play than any other top team, with similar or better credentials. it's when duke is not the team considered a title favorite that they get thrown to the wolves for matchup ratings like everyone else.

in '15....it was duke, wisky, uk from the beginning and duke got the easiest path by far and ended winning the title.

in '14....it was supposed to be uk, msu, ul and duke. but duke could not prove to be better than any of them by season's end. and the regular season ended up being dominated by uf & wichita st, and virginia. duke finished #8 and weren't ever really considered the favorite but remained close to respected. they got an easy path to the regional final and just crapped the bed.

in '13....it was mainly ul (lol) because they were a top team that was in the ff the year before, with teams like the iu (lol), osu, michigan all right there, preseason and post season. duke was preseason #8 and finished #7. they weren't considered one of the title favorites, and they got thrown to the wolves for matchup ratings. and crapped the bed before it could even happen.

in '12....it was uk, unc, ku all year. duke was not considered a favorite. they were preseason #6 and finished #8. they got put in soft side of our region (exactly like '14) had no chance and crapped the bed before it could even happen.

in '11....it was supposed to be duke. they got a #1 seed out west. this is the one year i'll say they got slightly screwed. but then uncheat stole their spot in that final acc game by winning. keep in mind this is when they really started rewarding conference champions much higher.

in '10....it was uk, ku, su all year, but duke who was preseason #8 had an excellent season in one of k's best coaching jobs, and they fished #3. they got the easy road in the easiest bracket in the best locations and ended winning a title. now this one is in uk for letting them get a title, but they had an easy road and were not banged up at all entering the ff.

the dynamic i noticed recently is if duke looks like they want to win, they generally get a very favorable draw. when we look like we want to win they throw us the kitchen sink. it's great but it's still bs to have to compare ourselves and our title runs as if they are similar.

 

[Stonewall12]

yes they do.

Did not read OP long post on defending duke.

Mods please ban

 

[WildMoon]

and duke shouldn't have been ranked that high in the first place...

this year proved some of discrepancy in the ratings for Duke. Even our team, UK, can't get that kind of favorable voting in ranking.

 

[.S&C.]

Tough draws for Duke.lmao. Gonzaga. SDSU. Villanova. G
Purdue without their best player. And on and on and on.

Take that **** somewhere were it'll be bought

 

[HeartofUlis]

Is there anytime we end up with the easy one while they get hit with the hard road? Would be interesting.

 

[.S&C.]

Is there anytime we end up with the easy one while they get hit with the hard road? Would be interesting.

You'll never see it.

 

[HeartofUlis]

You'll never see it.

Didn't think so. If they're suffering they will want to set us up with a gauntlet. It never fails.

 

[JohnnyGentle]

in '10....it was uk, ku, su all year, but duke who was preseason #8 had an excellent season in one of k's best coaching jobs, and they fished #3. they got the easy road in the easiest bracket in the best locations and ended winning a title. now this one is in uk for letting them get a title, but they had an easy road and were not banged up at all entering the ff.

correct me if i'm wrong, but my recollection is that uk entered that tournament as a higher 1 than duke, and got big east tournament winner west virginia as the 2 seed in their region

duke got nova, who had lost in their first BET game, and something like 3 out of their last 5 regular season games

then west virginia played a ******* 1-3-1 and didn't make a two point shot in the first half. wall was swatting **** off the backboard. cousins caught it on the lane line out of an under play, faced his guy up, took one dribble under control and as he came to a stop, before turning back middle, his defender flopped and that was his second foul

one of wvu's bigs, who was a worse shooter than poythress, made 3 or 4 threes in the first half and uk made something like 2 out of 27 in the entire game. there was all kinds of mazzulla excitement, and i spiked the television

meanwhile nova had beaten st mary's and their fat middle eastern center in double OT in the 2/15 and then whimpered out in the next round

desean butler's knee exploded in the final four, just in case

if academic fraud had won that regional final in 2011, that probably would have been it for me as a fan

and then there was last year. christ

 

[mjj_2K]

Let me explain this the best I can:

Duke road to final four...Ranked Teams in Bold
1986 16 8 12 7
1988 15 7 11 1
1989 15 7 11 1
1990 14 6 7 1
1991 15 7 11 4
1992 16 9 4 2 an anomaly for them.
1994 15 7 6 1
1999 16 9 12 6
2001 16 9 4 6
2004 16 8 5 7

That is 40 games to the final four. Ten final fours. 9 ranked teams. Back in the 80's Duke kept going East and eastern teams were down after 1985. Their bracket got busted repeatedly. Twice we were the team that failed to advance opening it up for them in 1994 and in 2001. Our bracket tends to hold together much better. Duke has been blessed either by incredible luck or geography or........?

I'm KEENLY aware of that. You're talking to someone who's broken down the average seed UK, UNC, Duke, and Kansas have played to reach FF's. And what that boils down to is that UK has had no luck at all.

Beyond that...your point is? The NCAA selection committee somehow knew that (Junior) David Robinson- led Navy was going to make the Elite 8? They knew that Temple was going to make it in 99? No. Duke has been lucky, UK hasn't. It's not a total shock when one team has better luck than another over a short period of time, and however long it might feel in real life, 30 tournaments just isn't a huge sample size.

 

[hotelblue]

correct me if i'm wrong, but my recollection is that uk entered that tournament as a higher 1 than duke, and got big east tournament winner west virginia as the 2 seed in their region

duke got nova, who had lost in their first BET game, and something like 3 out of their last 5 regular season games

then west virginia played a ******* 1-3-1 and didn't make a two point shot in the first half. wall was swatting **** off the backboard. cousins caught it on the lane line out of an under play, faced his guy up, took one dribble under control and as he came to a stop, before turning back middle, his defender flopped and that was his second foul

one of wvu's bigs, who was a worse shooter than poythress, made 3 or 4 threes in the first half and uk made something like 2 out of 27 in the entire game. there was all kinds of mazzulla excitement, and i spiked the television

meanwhile nova had beaten st mary's and their fat middle eastern center in double OT in the 2/15 and then whimpered out in the next round

desean butler's knee exploded in the final four, just in case

if academic fraud had won that regional final in 2011, that probably would have been it for me as a fan

and then there was last year. christ

wvu was already beaten when his knee was injured, but wvu shot their load against us and was just happy to be at that final four. duke punked them. they shot their wad on us just like wisky did last year. this is why '10 and '15 is on us as much as duke getting an easy road. sucks big time. but they had the advantages in those tournaments and got to fly under the radar in terms of pressure both seasons because of our dominance.

 

[Blueaz]

Seeding and bracket are not just it...
How many times they got the "tough" bracket, did they play in NC?
Hmmmmmm

 

[pikespeak1]

Yes, they got a nice gift last year. But here is their draw 4 of the past 5 years.

2014. They got put in the region of death with us. They were a three seed. With undefeated #1 seed Wichita State. And the best#2 seed in Michigan. And the best#4 seed Louisville. And all of those teams would have gotten the home court advantage in Indianapolis.

2013. They were a #2 seed. And they got matched with the #1 overall seed Louisville. They got sent to Indianapolis with possible #3 seed Michigan state that is less than a four hour drive away.

2012. They were a two seed. And again, they were matched with clear#1 overall seed Kentucky. Baylor was the toughest #3 that year was also on their side of the region.

2011. They were a #1. They got shipped 2000 miles away to play the best#2 seed San Diego State. In Anaheim California.

You can quibble if all of these were the hardest roads that year. I think so. But they are clearly not the easiest. So can we please stop with the whining that Duke always gets the easy road in the tournament.

The duke board is that way :thumbsdown::flush:

 

[*dezyDECO*]

if academic fraud had won that regional final in 2011, that probably would have been it for me as a fan

and then there was last year. christ

Last year-- groan* ...and if NCheat gets it this year, when they should be sitting at home watching it on TV, that'll just about do it for me.

 

[JohnnyGentle]

wisconsin was the most efficient offense ever. it wasn't shitting the bed like getting lit up by mercer

the first team, cal threw together in like six weeks after taking the job, and meeks had left. dodson was more interested in being high times man of the year than sec 6th man of the year. team had a glaring weakness, and wvu had just won the BET at the height of the hysteria

wall and bledsoe and patterson didn't make a shot but they went to war

f--k duke

not so sure about 2010, but in 2015 uk would have smashed their faces in. but they scored too well for wisconsin to drag them into a tractor pull

if you're like s & c and kopi kat and these other clowns you say yeah see uk had the best defensive team ever but duke won when it mattered because they made shots

never mind mercer and lehigh and arizona/louisville running away from them

 

[TortElvisII]

Beyond that...your point is? The NCAA selection committee somehow knew that (Junior) David Robinson- led Navy was going to make the Elite 8? They knew that Temple was going to make it in 99? No. Duke has been lucky, UK hasn't. It's not a total shock when one team has better luck than another over a short period of time, and however long it might feel in real life, 30 tournaments just isn't a huge sample size.

The point is over a long period of time duke went to the East and the other eastern schools were down despite gaudy records. It instilled in guys like me paying attention that Duke got favorable draws. So if you hear that today the history is very deep. It may be wrong recently as pointed out.

The Big East was incredible from 1982 to 1987 after that it went on hiatus until UCONN finally arrived.

 

[BBBLazing]

yes they do.

Did not read OP long post on defending duke.

Mods please ban

Translated: I am an insufferable homer and can not engage in reasonable debate. Therefore, there is no reason for me to even listen to anyone else's opinion. People that don't completely agree with me have no business saying anything.

People that ask mods to ban people should be banned.

 

[Xception]

Get shipped out west and have mighty San Diego as your two , brutal .

 

[JerseyCat84_rivals57050]

OP, shut your pie hole next time please.