2021 NCAA Tourney Thread

[Duck07]

They are like Boise St was in football. Play a couple of good teams out of conference and then never get challenged in league. Eventually it catches up with you when you play a couple of tough teams. They need to play in a better league and get challenged week in and week out. If they played in a league like the PAC they would lose a couple during the year but be better prepared for the tourney. This final was never close.

This is an easy take right now to make in hindsight but it's wrong. Baylor was just better last night and it had nothing to do with the WCC.

[ducks5ever]

Ya know I actually can't blame Mark Few. He doesn't like playing in competitive conferences which is why he hasn't really considered ANY P5 jobs. He likes beating up his weaker opponents and waltzing into the tourney. Perhaps that's how he likes it.

It's actually going to be really difficult to overtake Gonzaga in whatever conference they play in because any coach who does a half decent job there will get poached with a higher paying P5 offer. The barrier to success in Gonzaga's conference is incredibly high.... can't be recreated in any other P5 conference. Besides, his basketball philosophy doesn't necessarily depend on 1 and dones so he doesn't necessarily need the most "sexy" recruits coming out of high school that would tend to go to the UNC's, Duke's [and Oregon's!].

[Bighonkingduck]

They are like Boise St was in football. Play a couple of good teams out of conference and then never get challenged in league. Eventually it catches up with you when you play a couple of tough teams. They need to play in a better league and get challenged week in and week out. If they played in a league like the PAC they would lose a couple during the year but be better prepared for the tourney. This final was never close.

This is an easy take right now to make in hindsight but it's wrong. Baylor was just better last night and it had nothing to do with the WCC.

Baylor would be better 8 out of ten times. The game was total domination! The WCC is weak...very weak. Take away the Zags and they have 2 wins against top 25 teams. The only game the Zags need to worry about is maybe BYU at home. Every year the Zags flame out in the tourney. First time they ever made the final and that was pretty lucky as UCLA could have won the semi.

[OregonFan4Life]

They are like Boise St was in football. Play a couple of good teams out of conference and then never get challenged in league. Eventually it catches up with you when you play a couple of tough teams. They need to play in a better league and get challenged week in and week out. If they played in a league like the PAC they would lose a couple during the year but be better prepared for the tourney. This final was never close.

This is an easy take right now to make in hindsight but it's wrong. Baylor was just better last night and it had nothing to do with the WCC.

Baylor would be better 8 out of ten times. The game was total domination! The WCC is weak...very weak. Take away the Zags and they have 2 wins against top 25 teams. The only game the Zags need to worry about is maybe BYU at home. Every year the Zags flame out in the tourney. First time they ever made the final and that was pretty lucky as UCLA could have won the semi.

They also made it to the championship game the year the Ducks went to the Final Four and they lost a close one to North Carolina.

[Bighonkingduck]

They are like Boise St was in football. Play a couple of good teams out of conference and then never get challenged in league. Eventually it catches up with you when you play a couple of tough teams. They need to play in a better league and get challenged week in and week out. If they played in a league like the PAC they would lose a couple during the year but be better prepared for the tourney. This final was never close.

This is an easy take right now to make in hindsight but it's wrong. Baylor was just better last night and it had nothing to do with the WCC.

Baylor would be better 8 out of ten times. The game was total domination! The WCC is weak...very weak. Take away the Zags and they have 2 wins against top 25 teams. The only game the Zags need to worry about is maybe BYU at home. Every year the Zags flame out in the tourney. First time they ever made the final and that was pretty lucky as UCLA could have won the semi.

They also made it to the championship game the year the Ducks went to the Final Four and they lost a close one to North Carolina.

Yup! Guess I'm trying to forget that year!

[StevensTechU]

Those saying that every year the Zags flame out in the tourney, do you also think Oregon flames out in the tourney? Because Gonzaga just went further than we have since 1939.

[OregonFan4Life]

Those saying that every year the Zags flame out in the tourney, do you also think Oregon flames out in the tourney? Because Gonzaga just went further than we have since 1939.

I think it's slightly different only because Gonzaga is a regular 1 seed whereas Oregon doesn't have the record Gonzaga has going into the tourney. With that said though I disagree that Gonzaga does flame, maybe in the past, but not anymore, though there was clearly a talent difference when they played Baylor.

As for Oregon, I know we get excited at the late season runs, but I can't lie, I've been slightly disappointed in Altman in how the team has progressed since the Final Four team. That seemed like a good opportunity to build some program momentum, but since then they haven't made it past the Sweet Sixteen and sure they win the Pac-12 tourney a lot but it feels like Oregon makes these late season runs to make it that far. I'm aware this isn't just an Oregon problem, it's a college basketball program. College basketball is broken, the transfer portal and one and done's have destroyed the game drastically and it's made it harder for me to be as excited about Oregon basketball since the days of players actually being at Oregon for 3-4 years (Alex Scales, Fred Jones, Luke and Luke, Brooks, just a few players I loved watching and we got to know, there's more). Just would like to somehow see an Oregon team start and finish strong and have familiar faces as well. That's something Mark Few seems to be figuring out now and as long as he stays at Gonzaga I believe they'll win a national championship soon.

[bigsugarduck]

Those saying that every year the Zags flame out in the tourney, do you also think Oregon flames out in the tourney? Because Gonzaga just went further than we have since 1939.

I think it's slightly different only because Gonzaga is a regular 1 seed whereas Oregon doesn't have the record Gonzaga has going into the tourney. With that said though I disagree that Gonzaga does flame, maybe in the past, but not anymore, though there was clearly a talent difference when they played Baylor.

As for Oregon, I know we get excited at the late season runs, but I can't lie, I've been slightly disappointed in Altman in how the team has progressed since the Final Four team. That seemed like a good opportunity to build some program momentum, but since then they haven't made it past the Sweet Sixteen and sure they win the Pac-12 tourney a lot but it feels like Oregon makes these late season runs to make it that far. I'm aware this isn't just an Oregon problem, it's a college basketball program. College basketball is broken, the transfer portal and one and done's have destroyed the game drastically and it's made it harder for me to be as excited about Oregon basketball since the days of players actually being at Oregon for 3-4 years (Alex Scales, Fred Jones, Luke and Luke, Brooks, just a few players I loved watching and we got to know, there's more). Just would like to somehow see an Oregon team start and finish strong and have familiar faces as well. That's something Mark Few seems to be figuring out now and as long as he stays at Gonzaga I believe they'll win a national championship soon.

The flame out rhetoric has often been justified by the over seeding of Gonzaga teams due to the weak conference they inhabit. Despite the upsets, being a 1 seed is a tremendous advantage. So while Gonzaga made good on their seed this year, people are rightly skeptical because more often than not they do worse than their seed. So while Gonzaga does go farther in the tournaments, I would argue this is mostly due to favorable seeding. On the flipside, Oregon is almost always under seeded, and presented a more challenging path to progress. Despite this Oregon always overperforms their seed. If presented the counterfactual of Oregon and Gonzaga switching places in tournament seeding, I think Gonzaga would not be going as far in most years (but this year they certainly seemed FF worthy), and Oregon might have a few more FFs. Hopefully, the days of Gonzaga as a 1 seed are limited to only the years they remain undefeated, as a 1-3 loss Gonzaga should probably only be a 3 or 4 seed (in my eyes at least).