After UNC-Zaga, Does Anyone Still Believe the Tourney Is NOT Apparently Entertainment Engineered?
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Zaga appeared the better team.
The refs appeared to keep the game close, especially the second half, by apparently no calling UNC defence 5-7 times per possession until the Zags appeared completely destabilized.
The Zags were so good that the apparent no calling took most of the second half to break Zaga.
Then the refs appeared to wait until a Zag–Carnowski–retaliated in frustration and they hung a T on him to give UNC two FTAs and an extra possession, then the refs apparently fouled out the Zags defender of UNC’s inside scorer, and then UNC was so weak that the refs had to let UNC maul Zaga the rest of the way, before UNC’s inside scoring could decide the game…
In short, this was a new low for college basketball and a new high water mark of apparent entertainment value engineering.
I have lost all respect for Roy Williams.
It was shameful.
I truly wish I had not watched.
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@jaybate-1.0 To answer your headline, yes.
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Sadly, it was a dud of a game. The fouls were part of the story, but so was the poor shooting, slow pace, etc. A forgettable National Championship for everyone except UNC.
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I am not sure what game you were watching. The refs were bad, very bad because they called way to many ticky tac fouls but they called them fairly evenly on both teams, Gonzaga got to the bonus and double bonus a lot sooner than UNC so a reasonable person could infer that more were called on UNC and also sooner. Replay clearly showed that Berry cleanly stripped the ball from Karnowski and got pulled down by the neck by Karnowski and hit on the head with the hip while falling down, a clear flagrant by rule but Berry got called for the non-existing foul; that was a game changing call.
No doubt the refs killed the tempo and both teams shot horribly and the game was a forgettable one. Now, why is it again that bad refereeing makes you lose respect for Coach Williams?
If this was engineered entertainment, then they should get their money back…it was anything but entertaining.
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@JayHawkFanToo you said it. Close game… But absolutely not entertaining whatsoever
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Luckily I fell asleep. Had no idea who won. Sounds like only the Royals bullpen was worse than the game.
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And this is so much more important than the regular season?
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@jaybate-1.0 They were cooking the books. The flagrant foul on the polish monster was the giveaway.
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if the tourney was engineered, UNC would be in our bracket and would be playing @ home like us.
If we are making these claims, the claim can be made that the BIG 12 is engineered to give KU its streak.
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El poyo and Jaybate. THUNDERDOME. 2 men enter…
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@bskeet said:
so was the poor shooting, slow pace, etc
And unfortunately some poor decision making by players and coaches.
If I were a coach, I would be tempted to shoot any big who gets a foul outside the 3 point line.
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Refs were not great but they didnt cause the guys to have such a bad shooting night.
STOP HAVING GAMES IN FOOTBALL STADIUMS!!!
The shooting atmosphere is horrible.
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All I have to say about is 14 of 15 of the last tournament champions are from the Eastern time zone.
40 of the last 45 are.
93% and 88%, respectively.
So when completing your Tournament Bracket Challenge, you would be foolish not to pick an east coast team.
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@BigBad Shooting stats in stadiums over time don’t back up that claim.
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Roy gets 3 in 14 at UNC and 0 in 14 at Kansas. Go figure. We have bad luck, I suppose.
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@Blown He recruits nationally now. He wouldn’t recruit the east coast while at Kansas because he didn’t want to offend UNC. He is where he always wanted to be. Only reason he didn’t leave the first time was he knew he had Gooden, Hinrich, Collison, and Simien.
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@BigBad I understand he didn’t recruit nationally. I don’t agree that is why he didn’t win a championship before. Roy had plenty of talent throughout his years, save maybe the 98-2000 seasons.
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@Blown said:
Roy gets 3 in 14 at UNC and 0 in 14 at Kansas. Go figure. We have bad luck, I suppose.
Its the BIG 12. For some reason, its jinxed. We need to bolt.
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@Texas-Hawk-10 I know. I just hate it. I’m the old man yelling “get off my lawn”
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@mayjay is an east coaster. you can’t trust him. he’s likely biased.
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@Blown said:
@mayjay is an east coaster. you can’t trust him. he’s likely biased.
Not an east coaster in my heart. I still tell people I am from KC and just here temporarily. Since 1982.
Incidentally, about half the teams in the tournament were from the E time zone. Plus, if you throw out Ky, UNC, UConn, and Duke, those stats from the last 40 years might be different. Still, heavily E. But those are a huge number.
Hey, throwing out Duke and Kentucky just sounds good anyway!
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@mayjay HOPE YOU know I was just giving you a hard time
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@Blown But of course!
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Roy Williams is the greatest coach of this century in Men’s College Basketball. Undeniable.
Roy recruited nearly perfectly. Can anyone recall the last time he had a one and done player?
Roy has won three national titles since he left Kansas. He is perhaps the best coach in college basketball – arguments can ensue between Roy, K, Self, Izzo, and Calipari perhaps. That’s a nice place to be in discussions.
Roy Williams is the greatest coach in college basketball in this century (since 2000). Compare his record with anyone and I think you will agree. Three National Titles, Seven Final Fours, Ten Conference Titles. The Greatest of the Century.
Roy Williams is a great guy and best we can, we should enjoy his victories. He gave us 15 excellent seasons, made sure this program stayed elite, left our program in great shape, and turned it over to another great coach. And he’s never beaten KU.
Roy has three rings and eight conference titles at UNC since he arrived there. That trumps Coach K during that time period on both counts. Amazing.
@JayHawkFanToo We can all agree, the refs sucked. Just horrible.
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@HighEliteMajor absolutely well said. I agree. I guess that’s why I’m trying to hold out hope that Roy actually got better after leaving. And it has nothing to do with being at a different program. That is my hope. Cause I view Self as the same driven type of Coach… meaning the next 14 should be better than the last 14 which were still pretty great in many ways. And with already having 1 title in there. Dare I say that Selfs next 14 have a good chance of being even better than Roy’s last 14? Which would be an amazing run and I think it’s very possible
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@et al
“How Do I Engineer Thee”
How do I engineer thee? Let me count the ways.
I use thee to the depth and breadth and height of recruiting bias.
My sole can brand, when feeling insufficient share,
For the ends of controlling the petrowear market place.
I use thee to the level of selection day’s
Most quiet seed, by spin and PR psy-op.
I use thee freely, as click whores connive online.
I use thee basely, as my shills heap fake hype.
I use thee with the passion of greedy abuse
In my legal briefs, and bent whistles.
I use thee with a greed I turn to bones
With my spreads. I use thee with the rot,
stench, and death, of the greatest game; and, if Hell choose,
I shall but use thee baser after death.
–Elizabeth Barrett Brownbate 1.0
(Note: All fiction. No malice. And with apologies to Liz and Bob)
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Last night’s game was looking like it would be good, but the refs destroyed the pace in the early part of the second half with so many calls. The game just never go on track until about the 7 minute mark in the second half.
Once guys got into a groove it got better, but I think we missed out on a potential classic. The officials stole the game’s momentum and really bottled up the playmaking. I don’t think that favored one team over the other, though. Gonzaga had some chances, but they couldn’t pull away even though UNC wasn’t making any shots. That was what hurt them and ultimately cost them a national title.
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I watched UNC vs. Gonzaga.
What game did u watch???
Naismith has t0 be bent over a locker room toilet in basketball heaven heaving his guts out!!!
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@cragarhawk You said … “Dare I say that Selfs next 14 have a good chance of being even better than Roy’s last 14? Which would be an amazing run and I think it’s very possible.”
Very possible. Self is just 54 years old.
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Here’s why I think Gonzaga lost. And it’s just my stupid theory. Williams-Goss came up with a sprained ankle, or reinjured it anyways. This was approximately with one minute left. The game was still up for grabs. Zaga needs a basket, I believe down 3 but they’re playing for a two and then going to foul.
Goss stays in, he’s trying to walk it off. Announcer gives the obligatory ‘no way he’s coming out at this point’. Well he should have. He forced a shot from about 17 feet, fading away, couldn’t get elevation, almost airballed it. Next time down he’s the go to guy again, can’t even get a shot off because his weak ankle gives out on him, or he slips, or something. Game over. I don’t know anything about his team and options besides him, but Few should have been trying someone else.
And one other crazy thing from that game. As HEM points out, Roy is a great coach. He finished the game with 3 TO’s in his pocket. I think he used one in the first half. That whole tense 2nd half, no TO’s. That’s a team that knows what the coach wants them to do.
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Hard to argue with Coach Williams number. I have noticed that as I get older I become more pragmatic and tent to follow my head rather than my heart which is what I tended to do in my younger years. Having said that, it seems that Coach Self has being going through a similar process over the last couple of years and his rigid approach has changed and now he is coaching to the team’s strengths rather than sticking with the system that served him well most of his career but could not work with the personnel at hand,
Maybe we have seen the turning point in his career when he proved to himself that one single system, regardless of how well it worked in the past, is not the answer, and a more flexible approach is the better way to go. If this is indeed the case, we can certainly expect a more successful second half of his career and hopefully a few titles as well.
No question in my mind that the 2017-2018 team should be equally as good or even better that the one that just finished its season. On the big side, Lucas is leaving but we get Doke back and all the other players with one additional year of experience and add Preston. No question this is an improvement.
On the small side KU loses Mason and Jackson (is/was he a big?). A unanimous POY cannot be replaced but if Devonte plays to his potential and KU picks another PG, the drop should not be significant. Jackson is such a versatile player to replace but we have Svi, Vick and Newman coming back and Cunliffe and Garret are very capable wings that should see considerable playing time. No question the team will, at least on paper, be as good or even a better outside shooting team; a net improvement no doubt. All the very early projection I have seen have KU back as a top 5 team. A usual, the programs seems to be in good shape…no rebuilding this time, just reloading.
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@wissox Roy has finished every game he ever coached, including 38 junior hi games, with 3 to’s in his pocket. He must have a clause in his contract that he gets paid $10,000 for every TO NOT used.
He cost us dearly at times because he would not call a to, and it killed him in 08 versus us when he failed to call them. His one big blind spot.
But he does have 3 rings!
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It appears Bill would have a statistically insignificant chance of equaling Roy William’s record with the UNC EasyHeels, at KU, unless Self and KU “make accommodation” with the “apparent regime”. Until they make such accommodation, or the apparent regime is altered, it appears KU fans might as will skip postseason, except as a Carney experience. It’s like watching The Voice.
Whatever the drivers may actually be, it appears recruiting, seeding path, and no-call asymmetry appear just too much to overcome IMHO. It appears unrealistic to expect apparently “non apparent regime teams” to win more than 1 ring.
The message appears starkly clear, after last night, as clear as messages apparently being sent North Korea. @Blown’s stats apparently nail the coffin closed on the “Tourney.” Gonzaga appeared so much better than North Carolina that it appeared to take nearly an entire half of asymmetric no calls for North Carolina to eek out maybe the most pathetic “win,” since Coach K and Duke “defeated” UW, and Bo broke radio silence and called them a rent-a-team.
None of this is about population distributions of where the players are, anymore, if it ever were. If it were, Texas and CALIFORNIA and Great Lakes schools would be kicking ass the last 15 years. This appears to be about the “apparent regime.”
I truly pity Roy.
This is like watching one of Shakespeare’s tragic heroes slowly descend.
Something similar appeared to happen to Konsonants.
Pitino and Bo apparently tried to save their basketball souls and they were apparently smeared for their “peccadilloes.”
I wish Bill would retire. Now.
I don’t want to see it happen to him.
Maybe he will find a middle path.
But I doubt it.
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@jaybate-1.0 Is the “apparent regime” Nike?
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The apparent regime appears to involve a petroshoeco-agency complex and a media-gaming complex; that is why I have referred to it as an apparent regime. As a layman and a fan, that is about as specific as I can be based on limited virtual appearances, and even then it is at most a hypothesis.
I am NOT hypothesizing a conspiracy. I am flatley opposed to conspiracy theories involving illegalities being use to explain basketball phenomena. Whatever is ordering college basketball and it’s tournament appears legal and without attempt to hide its apparent effects.
I have hypothesized it as tournament engineering based on entertainment values.
Hope that helps.
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@jaybate-1.0 Don’t you think tournament engineering for max viewers, which seems to have the greatest possibility for influence in the bracketing stage, would have had UCLA in a different bracket from UK and UNC? Who in their right mind would decree that only one of those could get to the F4?
Unless it is someone who really hates Ball’s father, which seems a distinct possibility. He after all wants to engineer all of basketball!
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No. And this is why I have remarked about raw population distributions appearing not to be a primary driver of whatevever triggers the asymmetries we observe in Final Four and Finals teams. If it were only about that, then Texas and California team’s would have the best teams experiencing the most beneficial tournament engineering asymmetries. Capice?
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@jaybate-1.0 Its based on meme generation and the crying jordan meme will never die…UNC final four bound next 5 years…eek
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Hypothesis: there is a higher basketball watcher/bettor density in the EST and a different, more dominant media-gaming complex driving the EST action than in the other time zones. It might conceivably have evolved from a legacy tendency from pre sports television gaming organization divisions of action across the country, when all sports cable programming began to evolve and then built alliances with the NCAA and with be then dominant broadcast networks.
End of hypothesis.
I don’t even know if there is a higher watcher/bettor density . But it seems remotely possible. Also cricket. It would probably be possible to trace empirically evolution of gaming organization and video organization, if one were to inclined, resources and sufficiently skilled to do, too.
I’m just throwing it out as one of many conceivable hypotheses, since none of us is likely an insider that would know authoritatively.
Again, I am proposing NO conspiracies of illegal activity. None.
I am against using conspiracy theories of illegal activity to explain college basketball phenomena, unless they are already proven, of course.
Conspiracy theories unproven and “narratives” are for suckers.
I REALLY don’t understand what is going on. I’m just opining about appearances and hypothesizing, to try to find some way of making sense of the appearances and possibly to encourage data search. I have to admit those stats of @Blown are striking.
Rock Chalk!
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While you may have been joking, Memetic engineering is reputedly in full blossom in politics and warfare. It would certainly be worth considering in sports media. Scientific based Advertising and PR started in mass daily newspaper and magazine publishing in the early 20th Century and spread to politics and war as propaganda. Your hypothesis seems worth keeping an eye open for data. Color Revolutions have reputedly relied heavily on the memetic engineering and have reputedly succeeded. Who knows?
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@jaybate-1.0 Actually, I wasn’t thinking about population distribution or densities. I was thinking about fan bases. UNC and Kentucky are massive and are national brands. This year’s UCLA team resurrected that brand, and Lavar and his kids had the team in the headlines almost daily, I just think those three bracketed separately would have guaranteed more eyes across a wider swatch of the potential TV audience.
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Here is a list of all the basketball conferences ranked by Jeff Sagarin:
Now, look at the various conferences and see where they are located. You will see that the majority are in the EST or CST zones.
Just look at the top 5:
- Big 12 - CST, EST
- ACC - EST
- Big East - EST
- Big Ten - EST, CST
- SEC - CST, EST
You can see that the majority of the top programs are in the EST and CST zones and none in the MST or PST zones. You can go down the list and you will see that the only PST and MST zone conferences in the top 20 are the PAC 12 (6), Mountain West (9) and West Coast (11) and the Western Athletic that includes CST zone teams, and the only major conference is the PAC 12. you can continue going down the list and you will see the same pattern.
No question that the bulk of Division I college basketball is played in the EST and CST zones and thus it makes sense that the tournaments champions would come from these two zones.
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@JayHawkFanToo what % of tournament participants are from the EST vs the field? Last time I looked at it for a few years consecutively it was about 50% EST and 50% all other time zones.
One would think even “chance” would lead to a higher % of success from a non EST zone school.
Also, I’m not going to debate the why or how the percentage is so high for EST because I dont know and do not have time to study it properly. I’m simply stating the observation I have. Eastern time zones win more championships–it is a mandate.
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I don’t find your data or apparent logic very persuasive for your position, but thanks for presenting it. I will continue to try to see your POV…
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@HighEliteMajor Believe it has been a decade since UNC has had a OAD. The latest NC and two title games in a row - this one primarily with juniors and seniors who bought in to the system and came back to give it another shot - and probably marginal NBA talent on the roster, other than Jackson and maybe Bradley.
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You cannot just look at the tournament percentage participation in isolation. Say, if 75% of the top 16 teams (12 teams) are from the EST or CST zone, it really would not make much difference where the rest of the teams are from since the great majority of Champions come from these teams. I will guess that a disproportionate number of all teams come from the EST and CST zones anyway.
My points is that if teams from different time zones want to win the title, all they have to do is win games. I don’t believe the NCAA told KU to have a lousy shooting day so UNC would have an easier path to the title…all KU…or Oregon…or Gonzaga had to do is win and they did not and the NCAA had nothing to do with this.
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@jaybate-1.0 Vegas being involved would make sense for the biggest month they have of the year. Definitely would explain UNC, UK and UCLA being a 1,2,3 in the same region. Easily the 3 games that were most bet on in the tourney.
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My original numbers were off. I was going off of memory and thinking ESPN was founded in 1972. It was 1979.
So a corrected report would look something like this:
For the first 40 National Championships, 16 of 40 were won by EST zone teams. That is a 40% success rate for EST zone teams.
ESPN came along in 79, and those 40 championships pre-date their arrival.
Following the arrival of ESPN In 1979, 9 of the next 10 Champions were from the EST zone. Success Rate of 90%
From 1979 to 2017 33 of 39 champions have been EST zone teams. (Two of those six outliers were Kansas in 88/08 )
That is an 85% success rate for EST Zone teams.
19 of the last 20 (Kansas being the outlier) have been EST zone teams. EST success rate of 95%.
WHY? I don’t know. I can just see that it IS. There are strong arguments that the best talent is on the east coast and that the best programs are on the east coast. If so, I wonder if that was not the case pre 1979 when the greater majority of the championships were won by teams west of the Mississippi.
EDIT: POST SCRIPT:
in an attempt to the skew the numbers the best I could for non EST zone teams.
The best tournament run for Non EST zone schools after the arrival of ESPN was from 1988-2008 when 6 of the 21 winners were from Non EST zone programs. So during that time the EST zone teams success rate was a measly 71%
