been a good run guys, good luck to all the rest of you remaining, especially if youre playing buena vista!

Arriving at the Elite Eight

Midwest Region
Fourth seed CSU, Eastbay put on a shooting clinic in the second half, including a 9-for-12 performance from 3-point range, to storm past Rivier 92-82 and eliminate my call to win it all from the tournament. Terry Valentine had 25 points to lead the way for Eastbay, which scored 56 points in the second-half to pull off the mild stunner. Eastbay advances to face 3-seed Penn St. Altoona, which halted Sewanee's march through the brackets, 67-49. It was all about the shooting in this contest, namely the fact that PSA hit 55 percent from the floor while Sewanee was connecting at less than 35 percent. PSA and CSU-E did not face off during the regular season. 

East Region
Jonathan Johnson scored 33 points to single-handedly keep Cinderella Emory alive in the tournament with a 62-54 win over previously unbeaten Illinois Wesleyan. If defense wins championships, then it's getting difficult to ignore Emory. This marks the third time in three national tournament games that Emory has held its opponent to in the 50s for scoring. Also impressive was the fact the team went a perfect 14-for-14 at the charity stripe against IW and only turned the ball over eight times in the contest. Next up for this 12 seed terror is defending national champion Defiance, which lambasted Millsaps in the rematch of last year's national title game, 83-54. Much like Eastbay uncorked a whopper of a second half, so too did Defiance, which hit 16-of-27 from the floor after the break to storm away from a six-point halftime cushion. Emory and Defiance will be meeting for the first time this season. 

South Region 
Top-seed -- holy cow, there's still a top seed alive??!? -- Buena Vista moves into the Elite Eight with a 68-63 win over Hardin Simmons. Hardin Simmons led by 11 with 11 minutes to play, and was still up by seven with less than three minutes to go, but depth looked like it might have played a factor as Buena Vista closes the game on a 12-0 run. Now they'll get an intriguing meeting with 10-seed UMass Dartmouth. UMD smothered Susquehanna 68-41 in its Sweet 16 meeting, holding Susquehanna to less than 29 percent shooting from the floor and causing zeuspole to mutter something about burning the game film in his postgame presser. Richard Ross had 22 points for UMD, which also owned a +9 advantage on the rebounding glass for the game. Like the above games, the Elite Eight pairing between Buena Vista and UMass, Dartmouth will be a first-time encounter this season. 

West Region 
Fourth-seeded Louisiana built a first half lead and then kept it near 10 points throughout much of the second half of a 71-63 win over Emmanuel. Emmanuel never got closer than four points after trailing 27-21 at the break. Now they'll get 2-seed Johnson & Wales, which was having nothing to do with the high octane offense of Dickinson, slamming that door in decisive 93-64 fashion. It was a bad night for Dickinson's starting guard pair -- the tandem saw just a combined 17 minutes of floor time as fouls kept them shackled to the pine for much of the night. Johnson & Wales broke away from an eight-point halftime lead quickly in the second half to roll. This Elite Eight pairing against Louisiana is a rematch of a non-conference game from earlier in the year. JW defeated Louisiana 69-52 in that encounter. 

We could see a standard type of seeding pattern in the final four: 1, 2, 3, 3.

Or we could see chaos: 4, 4, 10, 12.

I thought Rivier was going to win the whole thing earlier, just like most of the other people who voted in Brian's poll.  If I had to make a bet now it would be on J&W.

Ignoring the chaos could be dangerous at this point.

Heading out to do some holiday shopping and such, but suddenly the chaos is gone and we're at a "normal" looking Final Four...

Penn St. Altoona had a 10ish point win in what I thought was a coin flip sort of game against CSU, Eastbay. 

Defiance survived another 33-point night from Jonathan Johnson to return to the promised land and end the Cinderella dreams of the 12-seed. 

Buena Vista was down HUGE at the half against UMass, Dartmouth, but managed to come back the full distance and then some to keep the dream of the unbeaten season alive.

Johnson & Wales improved on its non-conference victory against Louisiana to win by an even bigger margin this time around. 

So now we get PSA-Defiance in a battle of 3 seeds that, again, really looks like a coin flip that could go either way. On the other side, we have unbeaten Buena Vista and Johnson & Wales squaring off. Obviously, I've been a BV fan all season, but I don't think they've seen a team like JW yet and after the trouble they received in the first half from UMass, Dartmouth, I see some troubles here. I'll call a PSA-JW national championship game for tomorrow. 

I think BV wins by a solid 7-8 points.  Agreed the 3 seeds could go either way.  At least all the dust settled in this tournament.

Good luck to the remaining four teams.  Relative new comer to Rupp D3, Westcoast22 of Buena Vista gets to try to spoit repeat bids by some well established coaches in Rupp.  Looks like this would be his first national title if he can keep the perfect record going....

Given the four teams that were left, nothing would have surprised me as to the outcome. 

That said, it seems only fitting that 2 of the best coaches in the last several years get to square off in the finals.  Good luck to spas and carl - may the RNG be ever in your favor. 

Fans are hoping for a close game and even more so for the winner (and the loser actually) to take their talent to higher divisions next season!

Sorry to disappoint you brian, but I won't be leaving J&W anytime soon. 

I like how the team has been playing in the NT, seems like I finally hit the right lineup that clicks.  Defiance isn't really the team I wanted to face, though.  That 2-3 with great Def ratings is always capable of making us shoot 35%, especially since Per shooting isn't really this team's strength.  At least rebounding shouldn't be an issue for a change.

Every world needs a villain spasticity, so I am glad to have you stick around.  ;]

Defiance has crazy defense, certainly making me re-think the zone defense.  It really seems to all come down to players, but I do wonder if motion has problems against a zone.  Perhaps your Flex offense will fare better.

Posted by brianxavier on 12/3/2012 6:06:00 PM (view original):
Every world needs a villain spasticity, so I am glad to have you stick around.  ;]

Defiance has crazy defense, certainly making me re-think the zone defense.  It really seems to all come down to players, but I do wonder if motion has problems against a zone.  Perhaps your Flex offense will fare better.

Funny you say that brian, because I've had some results with motion vs. zone that have left me scratching my head at times, and I never seem to get them with my triangle teams to the degree/magnitude my motion teams encounter them. 

The party is officially over. Congratulations on your championship win, spas.  No offense to anyone, but it was a snoozer.  Anyone else take a look at spas' game log and look at his dominance for the last 10 games or so?  There were some exciting moments in the NT this season, but I'd like to extend a tip 'o the cap to Coach bobmeyer and his Trinity team for his accomplishment in the PT.  His Trinity team was a #8 seed entering the tourney and was certainly an underdog with 14 losses. Nice job bob and congratulations on your PT championship.

Congrats Spasticity, that is a great team.  This was the only team all season where after I looked at it and gameplanned, I thought we were most likely to lose.  I was hoping we had enough firepower to keep it close or steal a win, but yes, it was a snoozer.

I am planning to leave Defiance to try my luck at D1 or D2 for next season.  I hope a good human coach will take the job, I would hate to see the team fall from the upper echelon of D3, and there is some great returning talent to work with, but I am ready to try something new.  Also, being located in the NE corner of Ohio you can easily recruit in fertile states like OH, IN, IL, MI, and WV, so you can build a strong team with mostly recruiting within about 300 miles.

To whoever takes over, one quick thing: Slezak should play SF, not SG, regardless of listed position.  I will not give any more input unless you ask, lol.

I am hoping that Rednu and Brian both win titles soon.  Their stuff in the forum adds a lot of enjoyment.  I stayed longer in D3 than I thought I would partly because I got attached to my team, but partly because it was fun to read the forum every day.  So good luck to everyone but mostly to those two guys.

You've done an awesome job carl.  DI or DII won't know what hit 'em when you come rolling into town.  GL to you and to whoever takes over Defiance.