Tag: march madness

Oregon makes the field in ESPN’s first Bracketology report of the season

See where the Oregon Ducks land in ESPN’s first Bracketology report of the 2024 college basketball season.

The Oregon Ducks men’s basketball program is off to a hot start this season with a 4-0 record in November. Many national college basketball pundits were skeptical about a Ducks’ team without N’Faly Dante and Jermaine Couisnard, but through four games, Oregon looks like a quality team with March Madness potential.

Throughout the season, ESPN’s Joe Lunardi releases his “Bracketology” report, which details his current predictions for the field of 68 in the upcoming NCAA tournament. And although the Ducks were left out of the preseason AP Poll, Lunardi has them in the round of 64 in his first Bracketology report of the season.

In the initial report, Oregon is predicted to play in the West region as a nine-seed. The Ducks’ eight-seed counterpart is the Texas Longhorns who are 3-1 to start the season. The one-seed at the top of the region is Oregon’s Pacific Northwest neighbor: Gonzaga.

Oregon’s 4-0 record is impressive, but they have yet to match up with any quality teams this year, and they almost lost to Portland. The Ducks have plenty of potential to see their predicted seed (and real seed) go up before March, but the Ducks have their toughest games ahead of them.

Oregon’s not-so-distant future begins with a Thursday game in Corvallis against Oregon State. Next week, the Ducks are headed to Las Vegas for the Players Era Festival before kicking off conference play in December.

 

Jon Rothstein: Notre Dame ‘potential bubble team’ for NCAA Tournament

This would be huge.

Notre Dame is working its way back toward relevancy. While it’s not yet at the point where it can compete with the best in college basketball, all signs point to the program being on an upward trajectory. The Irish widely are expected to make some sort of progress during the 2024-25 season.

To that end, CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein has been in contact with [autotag]Micah Shrewsberry[/autotag]. Rothstein wrote on social media that Shrewsberry told him he has high defensive expectations for [autotag]Tae Davis[/autotag], the former Seton Hall forward who is entering his second season with the Irish just like Shrewsberry is.

More importantly, Rothstein feels the Irish could make a run at a 2025 NCAA Tournament spot. To already be a bubble team in Shrewsberry’s second season would be a tremendous sign of progress.

Even if the Irish fell short of March Madness, that almost certainly would mean getting into the NIT, which would be a valuable experience for a team ahead of the top 2025 recruiting class in the country arriving.

While the women’s basketball team easily will have the better season, the future for the men is looking very bright.

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Jon Rothstein: ACC needs Notre Dame to be good for March Madness spots

Can the Irish play their part this season?

Few if any people in the country love college basketball as much as CBS Sports’ Jon Rothstein. If you follow him on social media, you know he puts absolutely nothing in sports above college basketball. If a college football fan tweets something at him, he’ll play dumb and frame his response in college basketball terms.

Rothstein has released his ACC preview, and Notre Dame gets only one mention, which isn’t unexpected given that it has a lot to prove. However, it’s how Rothstein references the Irish that makes this interesting.

The ACC has been going through a bit of a dry spell as far as the number of berths it gets in the NCAA Tournament. The Irish last made the tournament in 2022, but some conferences teams have even longer droughts. Rothstein particularly signals out Louisville, Syracuse and Florida State.

Rothstein’s point is that all of these high-profile programs need to get their act together in order to restore the ACC’s reputation as the best in college basketball and have more than the five March Madness berths it’s gotten in each of the past three years.

We’ll see how the season plays out, and hopefully, the Irish can help make the ACC truly intimidating again.

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Oregon Ducks sophomore Jackson Shelstad named to preseason All-Big-Ten team

Jackson Shelstad, the star point guard for the Oregon Ducks men’s basketball team, was named to the Big Ten’s preseason All-Conference team.

We’re in the full swing of the college football season, with the Oregon Ducks looking great at 4-0, but we’re also two months away from a college basketball season that could be a memorable one for Oregon. Leading the Ducks will be sophomore point guard Jackson Shelstad, who on Tuesday, was named to the preseason All-Big-Ten team.

Shelstad’s selection doesn’t come as a surprise after his spectacular freshman season. Playing in 32 games in 2023, Shelstad averaged 12.8 points, 2.8 assists, and 2.8 rebounds per game while shooting 45% from the field, 34.5% from three, and 85.7% from the free throw line.

The Ducks’ 2023 season was capped off with an incredible and improbable run to the NCAA tournament. With no chance at an at-large bid, the Ducks beat UCLA, Arizona, and Colorado consecutively to win the final Pac-12 Championship, punching their ticket to March Madness where they upset South Carolina in the first round, and took three-seeded Creighton to overtime in the round of 32.

Shelstad was a major factor in the Ducks’ win streak at the end of the season, averaging 13.6 points, 3.6 rebounds, and 1.8 assists, with 40%/32%/85% shooting splits in the Pac-12 and NCAA tournaments. Shelstad was hitting big shots in those games, but like all season, he struggled with consistency.

A lack of consistency isn’t a surprise for a freshman like Shelstad. Instead, it’s the expectation. But now as a sophomore, he’s, hopefully, developed that part of his game, because Oregon will need it. With N’Faly Dante and Jermaine Couisnard — the other two stars of the 2023 teams — gone, Shelstad will be tasked with leading the Ducks back to the NCAA tournament.

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NCAA adds two new metrics to selection committee team sheets

Bart Torvik’s “T-Rank” and wins above bubble will now be used by the Selection committee to determine the teams in the NCAA Tournament.

The NCAA Tournament selection committee received two new metrics for team sheets to utilize during the tournament selection process.

The committee added a new predictive metric and a new results-based metric, giving them three of each. The new predictive metric joining BPI and KenPom will be Bart Torvik’s “T-Rank”, while the new results-based metric, wins above bubble, will join strength of record and KPI. The NET will continue to be utilized by the committee as well.

From the NCAA’s release:

“The committee has always valued different data points and metrics to assist with its evaluation process, and these two metrics have increasingly been referenced by members in recent years,” Dan Gavitt said. “Adding them to the team sheet ensures that all 12 members easily have access to this data. The Torvik rankings, along with BPI and KenPom, give the committee three predictive ratings, while the WAB, Strength of Record and KPI give them three results-based metrics, all of which, in addition to the NET, will be beneficial to the team evaluation process.”

The NCAA Tournament features 68 teams, and in 2025 will include 31 automatic qualifiers and 37 “at-large” bids, which will be determined by the committee on Selection Sunday.

Further expansion to the field has long been rumored, but is currently not in the works. Instead, additional data points will be used to help ensure the committee is picking the most deserving teams to participate in March Madness – hopefully making the process even smoother.

NCAA tournament expansion conversations move forward, per Yahoo Sports report

Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger reported on Wednesday that the NCAA produced an expanded March Madness model for D-I conference commissioners.

Conversations about expanding the NCAA Tournament field took a step forward on Wednesday, according to a report from Yahoo Sports’ Ross Dellenger.

According to Dellenger’s sources, NCAA vice president for the men’s basketball championship Dan Gavitt unveiled two models for March Madness expansion to the Division I conference commissioners. Dellenger said one model expanded the field by four teams and the other added eight teams.

Dellenger said no expanded field would go into effect until the 2026 tournament at the earliest. The longtime college football reporter said the debates hinge around which seeds would be pushed back to qualifying games.

“Officials need to determine if more small-conference automatic qualifiers will be relegated to play-in games,” Dellenger wrote. “A sensitive subject for some commissioners of lower-resourced leagues.”

The Big 12, ACC, and SEC commissioners have all voted for expansion over the past several months, with the most notable quotes coming from Big 12 commissioner Brett Yormark back in February.

“I want to see the best teams competing for a national championship,” Yormark told Yahoo Sports. “I’m not sure that is currently happening.”

Any expansion to the men’s bracket would be mirrored in the women’s bracket, if not in the same year then in the near future. The Duke men’s basketball team made 38 of the last 40 NCAA Tournament fields, and the women’s team reached the women’s bracket 25 times since 1995.

NCAA presents models that would expand basketball tournament by 4 or 8 teams

The NCAA is presenting models to expand the NCAA Tournament by four or eight teams as soon as the 2025-26 college basketball season.

March Madness is inching closer to another expansion. NCAA officials presented at least two models of an expanded NCAA Tournament field to Division 1 conference commissioners on Wednesday.

One had an additional four teams in the field, while another had eight teams, according to a report from Yahoo Sports.

The earliest expansion would take place is the 2025-26 season, and any expansion to the men’s tournament would likely take place on the women’s side as well.

Officials declined to speak publicly about the details of the models, but the proposals include expanding from 68 to either 72 or 76 teams, with additional at-large selections as well as at least one more First Four site.

The expansion is proposed in part as a way to avoid eliminating the 28 mid-major conference automatic qualifiers – which has extensive fan support – and is popular with power conference leadership as a way to get more of their programs into postseason play.

Officials don’t want to impact the traditional 64-team bracket, meaning any expansion will be added to the play-in model. That raises additional issues, like what seed those play-in teams will be slotted into, and whether mid-major automatic qualifiers will be slotted into play-in games, which has been a hot button issue for conference commissioners.

NCAA Tournament expansion remains a controversial topic, with many fans feeling like March Madness is perfect as is and adding more mediocre high major programs only dilutes the product. But money talks, and power conference commissioners certainly have the sway to get something done in the not too distant future.

Duke Blue Devils are one of 12 programs to make the NCAA postseason in all five major spots

Duke reached a bowl game, both NCAA basketball tournaments, and regionals for softball and baseball in 2023-24, a feat only matched by 11 other schools.

With the Duke baseball team officially the No. 2 seed in the Norman Regional, the Blue Devils joined an exclusive club on Monday.

Duke was one of just 12 athletic programs to make a college football bowl game, the NCAA men’s basketball tournament, the NCAA women’s basketball tournament, a baseball regional, and a softball regional in the 2023-24 academic year.

The Duke football team, in its second year under Mike Elko, won its first four games and finished with an 8-4 regular-season record despite losing starting quarterback Riley Leonard to injury for most of the season. Interim head coach Trooper Taylor helped lead the Blue Devils to a Birmingham Bowl victory to cap the year.

Both basketball teams overachieved in the bracket. The men’s team took down No. 1 Houston in the Sweet 16 to reach the Elite Eight despite being a fourth-seed, and the women’s team upset No. 2 Ohio State in the second round to reach the Sweet 16.

Softball clinched its first Women’s College World Series appearance on Sunday by defeating Missouri at the Columbia Super Regional.

Three other ACC schools accomplished this feat, including two more from North Carolina. Clemson and UNC, expectedly, and NC State’s miraculous March Madness run helped them join the list.

Alabama, Arizona, Kentucky, Oregon, Tennessee, Texas, and Texas A&M also made the cut from the Power 5 conferences, as did James Madison.

Duke baseball gets the chance to add its resume to what may be the best year in the history of Blue Devils athletics when regional action begins on Friday.

Alabama basketball set to host Kent State as a part of 2024-25 non-conference schedule

Alabama basketball adds Kent State Golden Flashes to 2024 non-conference schedule

The Alabama Crimson Tide basketball program is coming off of arguably the best season in school history after making their first-ever Final Four appearance. However, this is still the beginning phase of Nate Oats’s tenure in Tuscaloosa as his ultimate goal is to win a national championship.

Oats and his staff are still eagerly awaiting Mark Sears and Jarin Stevenson’s NBA draft decisions, which should come in the following days, but regardless of their decisions, the roster is in great shape. Keeping Grant Nelson around for one more year was the decision that got the ball rolling, then Oats went to work in the portal adding four valuable transfers and an outstanding recruiting class.

Heading into the 2024 season, the Crimson Tide will certainly have a case to be the top ranked team in the country. Oats and Alabama have made a huge emphasis on playing a tough out of conference schedule to help prepare them for the post season, and so far it has paid massive dividends.

For this upcoming 2024-25 season, the Crimson Tide have added a game against the Kent State Golden Flashes. The flashes are coming off of a 17-17 season in 2023-24, but look to be a much stronger team this upcoming season.

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Alabama basketball ranks No. 1 in the nation in way-too-early ranking

Alabama basketball is ranked No. 1 in the country in On3’s Top 25 NCAAM rankings

For arguably the first time in program history, Alabama Crimson Tide basketball will have major expectations heading into a season. After earning the No. 1 overall seed in the 2023 NCAA Tournament followed by the school’s first-ever Final Four run in 2024, there is pressure on [autotag]Nate Oats[/autotag].

Oats has quickly established himself as one of the top coaches in the country with two SEC regular season titles and two SEC Tournament championships on top of his NCAA Tournament success. Oats is so highly regarded, that when the Kentucky job opened he was their first choice, fortunately, he declined.

With the addition of Clifford Omoruyi to an already stacked roster, the Crimson Tide will be the team to beat next year despite UConn’s back-to-back national championships. Mark Sears’s NBA draft status is the final piece in question for the Alabama faithful, but at this point in time, it seems more likely than not that he returns to Tuscaloosa next year.

Heading into the summer, On3 has released their Way-Too-Early Top 25 rankings, and they actually have the Crimson Tide ranked No. 1 saying, “Alabama made big headlines once again this week by adding former Rutgers center Clifford Omoruyi to the starting lineup. The Crimson Tide is now talented and deep at every position with only two NBA Draft decisions left from Mark Sears and Jarin Stevenson.”

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