I havent been following college ball to closely this year as my Hawkeyes havent been doing squat. So, hows the Big Ten stack up against the rest of the nation. Will any of the teams make the Final Four (any predictions??)??? From what I have seen so far only one or two may be able to make it as far as the sweet 16.
Opinions??

Big 10 is very week this year IMO. Conference wise, the strongest is probably the SEC with I think the Big East a close second. The Illini are the only ones I think might have a chance to do sweet 16 or better, but everythime I think they're good, they go and prove me otherwise.

GO..... WISCONSIN!!!! I hope they beat Illinios!

I always fill out several March Madness Tourney pools and this year for the first time I dont have a clue. Arizona looks good but Stanford looks like a Good underdog pick. I like Kentucky also but Louisville could get on a roll. Like I said, Im clueless this year and am going to do some heavy reading and watching the next couple weeks... Who do you all think the underdogs could be??
Is there a Gonzaga or some other surprise team out there???

Originally posted by ETOPPSCARDGUY
I always fill out several March Madness Tourney pools and this year for the first time I dont have a clue. Arizona looks good but Stanford looks like a Good underdog pick. I like Kentucky also but Louisville could get on a roll. Like I said, Im clueless this year and am going to do some heavy reading and watching the next couple weeks... Who do you all think the underdogs could be??
Is there a Gonzaga or some other surprise team out there???

Just pencil Pitt in to win the national championship and you'll do just fine in your poll :p

i dont really care who wins

You can forget PSU

i think the big east is the strongest conference for the tourny

The Pac-10 will dominate with Arizona taking it all and the Ducks and Stanford both making the final 8.

i think the acc will do pretty good in the tourny

Originally posted by goirish48
i think the acc will do pretty good in the tourny

This is the year you can hop off the ACC bandwagon. Duke is garbage... if it wasn't for the ACC being so weak this year, Duke would have more than 5 losses. They have no inside game at all and can't shoot free throws worth a damn. This is not a Coach K team, he lost control of it a long time ago. Wake Forest has been impressive lately, but just like the Illini, everytime I start thinking Wake is for real, they do something to prove me otherwise. Maryland is just surviving with the leftovers from last years national championship team. NC State at best is a bubble team. I really wouldn't be surprised if no ACC team makes it past the Sweet 16.

Im kinda leaning towards the Pac 10 and SEC. Hows the big 12 doing?? Oklahoma would be my favorite right now, I dont think Kansas has got what it takes to go all the way...

I think if you had to pick a conference to produce the NC, I think the Big XII would have to be my first. It has 3 legitimate candidates for a #1 seed - KU, OU, UT. SEC might be the best deep and deepest conference in the country, but I think UK and FLA are the only 2 real contenders, especially with all the off the court problems with Georgia. Watch Miss State as a sleeper, though.

I think AZ is very good this year, but has no one to push them out west. I think Pitt is the only team that has a chance to make any noise out of the Big East. But even Pitt (my opinion only Iggy) hasn't played a difficult enough of a schedule to really be ready going into tourney time. Of course, they may be good enought that it won't matter. I don't see any other Big East Team even making the sweet 16. Sorry, ND. Syracuse just seems too young.

Originally posted by grego
I think Pitt is the only team that has a chance to make any noise out of the Big East. But even Pitt (my opinion only Iggy) hasn't played a difficult enough of a schedule to really be ready going into tourney time. Of course, they may be good enought that it won't matter. I don't see any other Big East Team even making the sweet 16. Sorry, ND. Syracuse just seems too young.

*sigh* I guess I can accept that. At least you're not haten on Pitt just because I'm big on them, you actually give a legitimate reason. I will of course have to disagree because although Pitt's RPI might not be the best, there's really no cake walks in the Big East. So pretty much every game Pitt was challenged. I guess it all depends on which Pitt team shows up... the Pitt team of 8 games ago who fell out of their game plan, or the Pitt of lately that has been playing their game plan and can beat anybody playing their game.

I think they've got a good team this year, but nobody on their schedule (save maybe ND, and possibly UConn since they've finally started playing a little better) is a caliber of the teams they will see in the dance. Schedule strength is in the low 80s - compare that with BigXII and SEC powers, most of whom have SOS in the top 20 and I think Pitt might be exposed. Not their fault that the Big East is down, but that's the way I see it playing out.

Btw, I went to A&M and have fball season tickets. Really looking forward to the game this year. Not looking forward to trying to cover Fitz, though. That guy is amazing.

Originally posted by grego
Btw, I went to A&M and have fball season tickets. Really looking forward to the game this year. Not looking forward to trying to cover Fitz, though. That guy is amazing.

Yeah, he is damn good. You can never go wrong with a tall, athletic receiver. Real good guy too so glad to see him succeed. My only real question mark about Pitt football next year is our QB and defense. Our defense was one of the best last year, but we've lost a lot of starters. We do have a lot of quality backups that can do just as good, but it'll be hard to play like they did last year. Our QB, Rod Rutherford, is good enough to get the job done. If he would have played just a bit wiser last year, we could have made it to a BCS Bowl. Oh yeah and BTW, we got screwed last year in that A&M game!

OHIO STATE RULES

Big East

the big east is the best grouping of teams

Iggy -
Rutherford looks to have a lot of talent, but he is one of the most erratic QBs I've ever seen. Not only game to game, but even within games. I saw ya'll play a few times - A&M, Miami, ND - each time he was either hot or cold. You would have won against A&M or ND with steady play from him. But A&M sat on the lead way too early. One of Slocum's biggest traditional gaffs. Letting teams back into games. I was pretty nervous beacuse Pitt had about 100 total yards the first 3 qtrs, but we still didn't have the game put away. And then Rod caught fire against our damn prevent D.

You're right about the extra points, that was a hose job. Game probably should have gone to OT. But we should have never let the game come down to that in the first place.

Originally posted by grego
Iggy -
Rutherford looks to have a lot of talent, but he is one of the most erratic QBs I've ever seen. Not only game to game, but even within games. I saw ya'll play a few times - A&M, Miami, ND - each time he was either hot or cold. You would have won against A&M or ND with steady play from him. But A&M sat on the lead way too early. One of Slocum's biggest traditional gaffs. Letting teams back into games. I was pretty nervous beacuse Pitt had about 100 total yards the first 3 qtrs, but we still didn't have the game put away. And then Rod caught fire against our damn prevent D.

You're right about the extra points, that was a hose job. Game probably should have gone to OT. But we should have never let the game come down to that in the first place.

Yeah, I know exactly what you mean. As a Pitt fan I was so pissed watching that game because they didn't do anything with the ball for most of the game. A&M had a great defense though so that should be expected. I still have my ticket from the game unused if you want it, LOL! So damn hard to get up for Pitt games because we take a bus to the stadium, and if you want to be there by kickiff, you got to be on a bus by like 10am. Too damn early when you were out partying the night before untill 5am.

Agreed on the atmosphere there. I heard it was pretty dead from some A&M people up there. Heinz looks like an amazing place, but anytime you play your games off campus, it seems to take away a great deal of the college atmosphere.

Like the looks of your new hoops arena. It is on campus, isn't it?

Originally posted by grego
Agreed on the atmosphere there. I heard it was pretty dead from some A&M people up there. Heinz looks like an amazing place, but anytime you play your games off campus, it seems to take away a great deal of the college atmosphere.

Like the looks of your new hoops arena. It is on campus, isn't it?

Yeah, playing at Heinz field is nice (except no beer sold :() but it really takes away from the college atmosphere. Considering they had a good year last year and people are high on Pitt athletics rigt now, I would think we could have good crowds next year but that won't happen either. We have ND at home and you know how those crazy ND fans are. They'll buy season tickets just to assure they got a ticket to the ND game and throw away all the other tickets.

As far as the hoops arena, the Pederson Event Center, it's on campus. They put it up where the football stadium used to be. There's no room for both though. We're right outside downtown and right in the heart of the medical district. The only thing I'm worried about is it's just people riding the bandwagon. I used to go to our old place all the time when I was young (Fitzgerald Field House) and it was just a little bigger verson of a high school gym. I'd go to games and they'd be lucky to have 3000 people there. Since it only seated 6000, it wasn't that bad, but what happens when only 3000 show for a 12,000 seat arena? When we were playing the out of conference games, most of the money paying people would be there, but only like 800 or 900 of 1500 students would show. It was pretty pathetic considering over 5000 people showed up for the lottery for season tickets. I wasn't lucky enough top get one of the 1000 season passes so I had to by my ticket per game. Right before break I went to buy my tickets for games that were going on over the break and since the school was pissed about attendance, they started selling a few more season passes unannounced. I was one of the lucky ones! Last year our spring break was the same weak as the Big East Tourny, but this year it didn't fall right so now I'm pissed I can't go!