March Madness

[HoyaSaxa03]

can someone help me make sense out of the Butler (5) / ODU (12) and Maryland (4) / Davidson (13) mini-bracket in the midwest?
 
 my gut reaction is Davidson (13) and ODU (12) meeting in the 2nd round with Davidson going to the sweet 16
 
 Maryland is way overrated at a 4 seed and Davidson is underrated at a 13 (probably should be a 6/11 game like Notre Dame / Winthrop) ... the ODU / Butler game seems like a tossup with Butler stumbling late and ODU coming on strong, so i'd take the 12 there
 
 unfortunately this leaves me with a 12/13 matchup of lilliputians in the 2nd round (which rarely if ever happens) and leaves me taking davidson to the sweet 16 basically as a crapshoot
 
 either way, any of those four teams who make it to the round of 16 will get crushed by florida, so it's not that big of a deal in the long run...
 
 can anyone out there (preferably not a terps partisan) help me out on this one?

[ggw]

If you look beyond the standard stats, Maryland is actually pretty accurately seeded.  Look at kenpom.com to see some heavier quant work on team rankings.  Adjusted for their opponentsâ?? offensive prowess, Maryland has one of the best defenses around.  Likewise, their offense isnâ??t too shabby considering who they played.  Davidson had a schedule of roughly the same difficulty as UPenn, which isnâ??t saying much.  They got spanked by Duke and lost to every other notable team they played.
 
 I say all this as a declared non-fan of Maryland.
 
 ODU seems a much safer upset bet.  They beat Drexel twice and the Hoyas once.  Butler may be 27-6, but they ended their season 4-4.

[HoyaSaxa03]

fair enough, thanks for the analysis ggw ... i absolutely love kenpom.com, it's where i refer people who care about college ball most often to learn about in depth and non-conventional stats ... it doesn't hurt that the site does the best job of describing why georgetown is such a formidable team (molasses-slow offensive tempo + almost-perfect offensive efficiency = very hard to beat)
 
 i admit that i'm biased with UMD, but for some reason i just have a feeling that they're too inconsistent to make a deep run, and i've seen davidson in the last couple of years and have been very impressed
 
 i think the rational choice here would be ODU and UMD, with UMD getting into the round of 16, i'm just not sure if i can pull the trigger on it

[HoyaSaxa03]

ok, so i'm going to vegas this week and my plan is to spread money across a bunch of different games (maybe all of them) so i can hedge my bets and minimize big losses while still making each game interesting
 
 any thoughts on an overall strategy?

[sonickteam2]

Originally posted by Hoyas Final 4:
  can someone help me make sense out of the Butler (5) / ODU (12) and Maryland (4) / Davidson (13) mini-bracket in the midwest?
 
 my gut reaction is Davidson (13) and ODU (12) meeting in the 2nd round with Davidson going to the sweet 16
 

i'll try.  Davidson played no one, Maryland is way too experienced (though, not tournament) for Davidson to hang.  
 
   neither Butler or ODU can hang with them either.  Maryland played brilliantly the last few weeks of the season, other than the Miami defeat. I dont care who you are, you dont win in Cameron indoor, then lose to Davidson, Butler OR Old Domionion.  
 
  by the way, ODU beats Butler.
 
    I am in now way a maryland fan, but i have em beating florida as well.  i think ibekwe can play with Noah, i think they can shoot the ball with florida and i think the only team that can beat florida is a team with a good guard who can drive to the basket and dish to the big guy...that equals MD.
 
   take MD to the sweet 16 at least and i think they take florida, but then lose to Oregon in the regional finals.
 
   yes, i think the ducks are that good.

[sonickteam2]

Originally posted by Hoyas Final 4:
  ok, so i'm going to vegas this week and my plan is to spread money across a bunch of different games (maybe all of them) so i can hedge my bets and minimize big losses while still making each game interesting
 
 any thoughts on an overall strategy?

i bet quite often on college bball and i regularly witdraw about $200 a month from my earnings.  (i place $10-$20 bets on each game)
 
   i regularly take ACC teams with the over. they always score tons. this also goes with Mountain west teams.  
   
   whatever the over is for UNLV/Ga. Tech...take it, its gonna be like 90-85!!
 
    i'm going over on BYU/Xavier as well as Winthrop/Notre Dame and Tennessee/LBSU.  (this last game wont even need a shot clock!)
    providing they dont make some crazy over of like 160!  
 
    i NEVER EVER pick the under for any game. if you dont know, dont bet, but there's nothing that sucks more than watching a basketball game hoping no one scores!!!
 
   As for points, good bets are Oregon -9  over Miami (i'd have taken a -16 and still bet!)  Southern Illinois are a -7  and Boston College is -3
 
   thats 7 games i just dont see going wrong for ya.  in fact, i've put money on the last 3 games already, cause i see those lines going way up in the next two days.
 
        good luck!!

[HoyaSaxa03]

Originally posted by le sonick:
  yes, i think the ducks are that good.

i like the ducks a lot as well, i have them losing to FL in the regional finals ... fantastic guard play ...

[BookerT]

Originally posted by Hoyas Final 4:
   

Originally posted by le sonick:
  yes, i think the ducks are that good.

i like the ducks a lot as well, i have them losing to FL in the regional finals ... fantastic guard play ... [/b]

oregon seems like a trendy pick. does notre dame have a chance to beat them in the 2nd round? everyone is picking winthrop over ND which means you gotta go w/ND and maybe even again over oregon.

[HoyaSaxa03]

Originally posted by le sonick:
       good luck!!

thanks for the tips sonick, much appreciated ... i was looking, however, for some kind of over-arching money-management strategy for the weekend (if that makes any sense)
 
 assuming i'm coming in with 100 units, how do you think i should structure my bets for the best entertainment value sustained over 3 days?  i'm really just looking for entertainment value rather than smart and sober picks.
 
 being a relative neophyte, i was planning on just going to the casino on friday morning and placing all my bets (maybe 30 units out of my 100 total units, saving the other 70 units for Sat/Sun) for the day, then sitting back and watch how it unfolds ...
 
 my friend who does a fair amount of sports betting said this by far the most boring way to do it, and suggested i bet about 10 units (out of 100 total) on the first "round" of games (for me, the 12pm EDT friday games) and then just start chasing, varying the size of my bets as depending on my confidence in the wager and how much i've won or lost already
 
 i've dabbled a bit in sports betting in the past, but generally tried to avoid it, and certainly never sustained it over a 3 day period, betting on nearly every game ... i'm sure it'll be a hell of a lot of fun
 
 what do you think?  anyone else have any tips?

[HoyaSaxa03]

Originally posted by BookerT:
  oregon seems like a trendy pick. does notre dame have a chance to beat them in the 2nd round? everyone is picking winthrop over ND which means you gotta go w/ND and maybe even again over oregon.

i definitely have ND over winthrop and ND v. oregon will be a high-scoring slugfest, should be a great game ... ND is really underrated at this point and winthrop is way too sexy of a pick right now
 
 that said, it's so hard to transition from picking these teams based on who will win, and then picking them based on who will cover the spread

[ggw]

Florida is going down in the second round to 'zona.
 
 You heard it here first.....

[bigyellow100]

ohio st is going down to uva in the sweet 16; you heard it here first!

[sonickteam2]

Originally posted by BookerT:
  oregon seems like a trendy pick.  

they are. i suppose.  but here's where my bracket picking schemes come in.  
 
   when i initially did my brackets, i came up with kansas, florida, g-town and ohio st
 
   boring. and hardly winnable in a pool unless you have a killer 1st/2nd round (which i never do) so i always pick the 3-6 seed "dark horse" to come through.
 
   the two years i've came in second in my pools (nope, never won) i was the only one taking louisville to the final four 2 years back, and Georgia Tech to the title game (lost that year on the fucking tie-breaker score...by TWO POINTS!!)
 
   this year its oregon, and if oregon can get through...i'm good!

[snailhook]

i'm liking oregon, too. really torn on ND vs winthrop at this point. i'm looking at florida vs oregon and florida winning.
 
 nobody is picking louisville over texas a&m, but i am. there's just something about texas a&m that i'm not buying...it might not be anything more than pure intuition. i do like how louisville came on strong in the big east, which was way tougher than the big 12.
 
 yet, i like kansas to win it all, or at least get to the final four. i think UCLA is faltering at the wrong time, and i have pittsburgh beating them and losing to kansas in the elite eight. kansas bombed the last two years, and i'm betting that doesn't happen this year; i'm thinking they will make a run like they did in 2003 when they lost to syracuse.
 
 texas is a real wild card because of durant: they can win it all or tank in the first (though not likely) or second round (very possible against USC). UNC/texas, if it happens, should be a killer game. i think georgetown is peaking at the right time, and their deliberate offense and stellar defense is a winning combination. their big east title win over pitt was impressive.
 
 after lots of mulling over, my elite eight ended up being:
 
 florida (1) over oregon (3)
 kansas (1) over pittsburgh (3)
 georgetown (2) over north carolina (1)
 ohio state (1) over louisville (6)
 
 three big east teams? it seems kind of crazy but works for me. the pac 10 and big east were the best conferences this year. i think most ACC, SEC, and big ten teams will tank this year. the big 12 sucked but their top three were monstrous.
 
 my upset specials:
 
 albany over virginia
 illinois over virginia tech (although it seems kind of weird that VT is seeded that much higher that illinois)
 george washington over vanderbilt

[HoyaSaxa03]

we should do a 930 forum pool, just for the hell of it ... anyone want to put it together, maybe on cbs.sportsline?