The NCAA tournament is just days away, so FanHouse writers and editors got together to talk over each region. The Midwest Region got the ball rolling. Now it's the East's turn.
Chas Rich: As every story relating to Pitt and the NCAA Tournament is contractually obligated to mention, the Panthers have not made it past the Sweet 16. (In fact, Pitt has never won more than two NCAA Tournament games, regardless of the size of the tournament -- since, as a Pitt alum, I like to further depress myself). Duke in recent years has not made it too far either. It has not made it past the Sweet 16 since 2004, and that was the only time in the previous seven years.
Is that going to change for either team?
I think Pitt could get tripped up in the second game. They will face Tennessee or Oklahoma State, two teams that like to press. Pitt has struggled against pressing teams. Both Oklahoma State and Tennessee have been very inconsistent. Tennessee has struggled mightily with shooting, and if you don't make baskets it is hard to set up the press.
Oklahoma State is the scarier team for Pitt. They had to get adjusted to a new coach in Travis Ford and his style. They have played much better late in the season, even before the Big 12 Tournament. As a Rick Pitino disciple, Ford really likes to press and goes with a four-guard lineup. I like them over Tennessee and they could provide one of the biggest upsets of the Tournament in the second round.
That said, if Pitt does get past that game, I really like them to get to the Final Four. No one else from the 5-12 game (FSU-Wisconsin) or 4-13 (Xavier-Portland St.) seems as scary. Pitt has already beaten FSU in Jacksonville. Xavier is just not the same team.
In the lower half, I have a hard time seeing Duke getting past the Sweet 16 yet again. I do not see them having much of a problem with Texas or Minnesota in the second round game. But then they would likely be facing Villanova. I just think 'Nova's guards would be too much for Duke's backcourt, and Dante Cunningham inside would drive Duke crazy.
The trendy upset pick seems to be the 11-6 game, VCU over UCLA, because the Bruins are coming all the way to Philly while the Rams are less than 200 miles away. I love Eric Maynor, but UCLA is just a little stronger in every other position.
Chris Burke: I agree with you that the second-round game is a scary one for Pitt. I think Pitt is better, by a decent amount, than either Oklahoma State or Tennessee, but both teams are capable of putting together solid games, and that's got to be a concern.
Duke's got similar issues in the bottom half of the bracket, in the sense that the Devils' second-round game could be a tricky one. Minnesota's likely less problematic, but the Gophers have a very solid coach in Tubby Smith and a defense-first mantra that could keep any game in the 50s or 60s, and when that happens, it's up for grabs. Texas is a dangerous, dangerous squad, in my mind. Anytime you talk about having two players the caliber of A.J. Abrams and Damion James in an NCAA Tournament setting, that's a team with the potential to do some damage. Add in a solid cast of supporting guys, and the Longhorns could really spoil the party.
I'm not as sold on Villanova as every else seems to be, even with the added factor of the 'Cats playing in Philadelphia. Obviously, their guard play is spectacular, but when you have a team that pushes the tempo so much and occasionally spaces out on defense, you have a team that's ripe for an early upset. I don't think American has the guns to do it, but UCLA's getting overlooked. This team was top-five earlier this season, plays defense and can shoot the lights out from outside. If there's a mid-seed in this region with the capability of going to the Final Four, it has to be the Bruins.
The 5-12 and 4-13 games are basically washes for me. I think either first-round matchup could be an upset, any of the four teams involved could go to the Sweet 16, and none of them would get past Pitt.
Shane Bacon: In my opinion, this is the second-most talented bracket besides the South. You have the aforementioned Panthers, who have been scary tough all year. You have the Dukies, who are a little better than in past years and got rewarded with a two seed. You even have UCLA (always tough) and Villanova.
I think two things happen: 'Nova makes the Final Four and UCLA does not lose to VCU. I love the sexy pick but we've already chatted about coaches in the previous round table and Ben Howland is as tough as they come.
I like Florida State to take out Xavier on their way to a defeat by Pitt and Duke to struggle with Villanova.
Ray Holloman: I wouldn''t overlook Florida State out of the top half of that bracket either. Certainly Pitt defeated the Seminoles earlier in the year, but the FSU defense held Pitt to its worst offensive effort of the season. Outside of 6-foot-2 scoring guard Toney Douglas, the rest of that lineup goes 6-foot-7, 6-9, 6-9, 7-1. That's an NBA layup line or a bunch of guys who could reshingle your roof without a ladder. All that length makes it very hard to do what you want, particularly around the basket. And Douglas is exactly the kind of player who will score 30 without breaking much of a sweat.
Having said that, the Seminoles turn the ball over too much and I doubt they're sufficiently composed to beat a team like Pitt in a possible Sweet 16 matchup, they certainly weren't when Duke started pouring in bucket after bucket in the ACC championship. But I think it'll be a close, low-possession kind of game.
In the bottom half of the bracket, I like Villanova, but I think Duke deserves a good look. After the ACC title, coach Mike Krzyzewski made the case that his team is really 8-1 instead of 28-6 and he's fairly well right about that. Since benching Greg Paulus (again), rotating Jon Scheyer to the point and sliding in Elliot Williams, the Duke offense has really taken off, even if a bit of its defensive intensity seems to have disappeared. Scheyer is averaging better than 20 points a game since the switch and has a better than 2-to-1 assist-to-turnover ratio. Elliot Williams has been an energy drink in a jersey in that lineup and adds a slashing element to the starting lineup, plus a great wingspan to help out with rebounding. I think people have really hung themselves up on what Duke was the last two years. In the selection show, Digger Phelps said Duke doesn't win when its 3-pointers don't fall, implying it lives and dies off the 3-pointer. Which is true only to the point that any team that doesn't shoot well loses, it's the most important factor in basketball. But Duke is actually a high-middle-of-the-pack team in terms of 3-point usage. 34.9 percent of the Blue Devils' field goals are 3-pointers, which is much less than, say, Louisville (37.8 percent) and is 15th among all NCAA tournament qualifiers. (Michigan is the extreme, shooting 47.8 percent of their shots from long range). The Blue Devils are also a very good offensive rebounding percentage, so the Digger idea that Duke gets no second looks when it misses shots is perplexing. The Blue Devils are 29th in the nation with a 37.8 percent offensive rebounding percentage. They'll struggle to keep other teams off the defensive glass, but that's the gamble you make when you're an aggressive man to man team. You trade off defensive rebounds for turnovers on the perimeter.
And if Duke did survive Villanova, I'd give them a chance against Pitt. A year ago these same two teams met in Madison Square Garden and the Panthers needed to rally from down 16 points to force overtime. Only a Levance Fields 3-pointer with 4.7 second left proved the difference. And Fields missed that shot better than 70 percent of the time last year. Sure, Duke wouldn't have a way to handle Blair, but he scored 15 points and grabbed 20 rebounds in the first game and the Blue Devils still were in a great position to win.
Having said that, I'd still take Villanova to advance in a really physical game in the Sweet 16. Duke thrives on its help defense, all those charges taken and double teams. But Villanova has a good enough group of guards to spread Duke out and drive on them before anyone can rotate over. Other than Nolan Smith, there isn't an elite shutdown defender on the perimeter one-on-one. And I just really like Villanova. A year ago the Wildcats proved their postseason mettle and the team is even better. They're very skilled on both sides of the ball. They do not' turn it over. They've got five guys that can score and Dante Cunningham is as improved as anyone in the tournament from a year ago. They beat Pittsburgh earlier in the year, lost to Louisville in a January heartbreaker in which the Wildcats missed two close-in shots near the buzzer (not to mention a boatload of free throws) and lost by one and lost to Connecticut by six.
They might get a bit of an early surprise against American, which is bringing back seven seniors, including Patriot League player of the year Derrick Mercer and the school's all-time leading 3-point shooter Garrison Carr, but there's no way they don't pull away in the second half. Even with a year experience in the Big Dance, the Eagles are going to struggle to stay in front of the Wildcats' guards and Cunningham will have his way with their front court.
The interesting thing about the bottom half of that bracket is that it's just stuffed with great defenses. Duke, Minnesota, Texas, Villanova are all top 25 defenses. UCLA is 37th in adjusted defensive efficiency; VCU 48th. Don't expect a lot of huge scores out of that half of the bracket.
But if I ate my Wheaties the morning I fill out my FanHouse pool bracket, I might advance Villanova to the Final Four.
Adam Papagiorgio: There are two simple truths in this bracket. Duke will lose sooner than people will think. Duke would have lost in the first round last year if it had grabbed Wisconsin's No. 3 seed that it deserved (falling to Cal State Fullerton). But once again, Duke will not advance to the Sweet 16, falling to Texas.
UCLA will do better than people want to believe. There is no way the Bruins lose in the first round. Ben Howland is a great tournament coach. Steve Lavin no longer coaches in Westwood. Honestly, people are so overboard on picking upsets, they will rationalize just about any pick. The Bruins won't make it to the Final Four this year, but come on, they are not losing in the first round.
Shiloh Carder: I agree with Adam. People have put a lot of stock in Duke winning the ACC tournament. Duke didn't have to beat North Carolina, Wake Forest or Clemson to win it. They have a shooting guard running the point, a freshman who has barely played until a month ago now starting at the off-guard and absolutely nothing in the paint.
I like Florida State (who Duke did beat for the ACC title) in the top half of the bracket. I think they can get Xavier and give Pitt a challenge.
Still, I don't see any other way this will go other than Pitt-Villanova in the East Regional Final. The Panthers to their first Final Four since 1941.
RH: I don't think it's particularly fair to hold the sins of last year's Duke team against this year's Duke team because they're simply not the same. Last year's team limped into the postseason and was never quite the same after Gerald Henderson's wrist injury in the win over North Carolina in Chapel Hill. They shot a much higher percentage of 3-pointers and really got killed on the glass (you might recall in the loss to West Virginia, backup point guard Joe Mazzulla had 11 rebounds.) And I don't know about Wisconsin's bona fides, the Badgers were hammered by a Davidson team Duke beat earlier in the year. As for the Belmont game, close calls happen. It's all about matchups in that environment. Princeton nearly knocked off Georgetown as a 16 seed in 1989, losing by a point, Les Robinson nearly got Oklahoma and fell by a point, I believe. Speaking of America East teams, Albany gave UConn a hell of a scare in 2006. It happens, particularly to a banged up team that was living off the achievements of earlier in the year. That's not the case this year for the ACC tournament champions.
This Duke team has three really solid scoring options with Gerald Henderson, Kyle Singler and Jon Scheyer. They're an excellent offensive rebounding team and excellent on the defensive perimeter. They don't turn the ball over and they've actually got a little bit of confidence to them. A year ago, Duke does not win that one-point game over Boston College in the ACC tournament. Maybe they don't even win it a month ago. I don't think it'll advance to the Final Four, but I don't think this is a Duke team with the same failings of a year ago. Should you need proof, check the bench and watch senior point guard Greg Paulus handing out towels instead of failing to box out Mazzulla.
And I don't think Texas matches up very favorably. Yes, they're a great defensive team, but the Longhorns really can't shoot. And if you're going to be bad at one thing in basketball, it can't be shooting. They shoot 32 percent from 3-point range, just 48 percent from inside the arc and 67 percent from the line. If you shoot at those rates, you'll have to create a lot more possessions than your opponent. And unfortunately for Texas, they're terrible at creating turnovers and Duke is excellent at preventing them. If Texas is going to win, they'll really need to flex their muscle on the offensive glass and get a great shooting night from AJ Abrams. But even that I see as problematic (not the least reason that Abrams is a 39.6 percent shooter from the floor), because Duke is going to be able to put a lot of length on him defensively. Between Nolan Smith and Elliot Williams, the 5-foot-11ish Abrams will have to take a lot of contested shots.
And that's assuming Texas makes it out of the first round. There's a not-so-insignificant chance Minnesota takes them out. When you shoot the basketball that badly, you're not long for this world in the NCAA tournament. And Texas' effective field goal percentage is lower than all but four teams in the NCAA tournament, all double-digit seeds. And if Texas won back-to-back games over Minnesota and the Duke/Binghamton winner, it would be the first time since December the Longhorns have put together a winning streak that included two NCAA tournament teams.
SC: Can Duke make the Sweet 16? Definitely. But it isn't a forgone conclusion as people may think. Texas can knock Duke out of the tournament in the second round.
I, for one, do not hold Duke's problems in past tournaments against them. Really I don't. History is full of programs that struggled in the early rounds of a few tournaments and then run off to a title in another (Arizona, Kansas, Syracuse). The past two Duke teams were low on experience and low on leadership. Aside from Elliot Williams, this team has been together for a while. Gerald Henderson is a stud and this team doesn't rely on the threes like they have in the past.
This is a much better team that the one Clemson destroyed a month ago. Still, a team with a sizable and athletic frontcourt can eliminate Duke.
