Category Archives: “Planting” the Seeds

Planting the Seeds – Version 3

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Where is your favorite team going to end up seeded in the NCAA Tournament? Bill Riccette and I will do our best to tell you in the latest installment of this ongoing series.  The basic concept is similar to any Bracketology articles you may come across.  However, we are only covering the top six lines.  And the biggest difference is that we are predicting what will happen – not creating an “if the season ended today” bracket. You can find Bill’s work at Bleacher Report right here.

Check out the projected seeds here

Planting the Seeds – Version 2

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You may recall a couple of posts from mid-November that I said would be a recurring series. With the holidays, vacations, etc, this is regrettably only the second version that Bill Riccette and I have been able to publish. Bill writes about his beloved Eagles at Bleacher Report, and despite the fact that he’s from the wrong side of Pennsylvania, our common ground of college hoops led us to this series. As you’ll see below when we turn our words into pictures, we had a mid-December revision but weren’t able to publish it.

My Top Six

Click to enlarge image

Click to enlarge image

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Planting the Seeds – Version 1, Part II

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You may remember Part I of this post from a couple weeks back.  As promised in that entry, Bill Riccette and I have returned with a back-and-forth exchange centering mainly around the teams on which we disagreed the most.  As I said to Bill to kick-off our exchange, it’ll be very fun to check on this two-part Version 1 as the season progresses to see just how wrong we are.  My contributions will be in BLUE text, while Bill’s will be in the regular font.

Bill, as expected, our opinions differ on a few teams.  Some of that (Kentucky vs Missouri, Arizona vs UCLA) can be attributed to who we think will win those conferences, so I want to focus on the teams we’re both considering to be among the best of the at-large’s.  Because you’re the guest, I’ll let you take first crack at justifying your positions.  Start with Michigan.

I really like the Wolverines this year, mainly because of Trey Burke. Him coming back was huge for this team, which suffered a shocking Second Round loss to Ohio in last season’s NCAA Tournament. Burke, Glenn Robinson and newcomer Mitch McGary will give John Beilein quite a group to contend for the Big Ten title (a title they shared last season).

Continue reading the differing opinions

“Planting” the Seeds – Version 1, Part I

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This season, I wanted to do a Bracketology, but at this point that seems premature.  Who knows who will win the one-bid league tournaments?  So I decided to focus on seed lines 1-6.  

This will be a collaborative effort as I’m joining Bill Riccette of Dynasty Sports Empire - a blog that focuses on all sports from a fantasy perspective and will henceforth be referred to as “DSE.”  Bill is a huge college hoops, so we decided we’d get together for a semi-regular feature throughout the season.

Bill and I will go through what we think will be lines 1-6 in the NCAA Tournament.  We’ll update this once a month or so until January, then twice a month, then hopefully once a week in February (at least that’s the plan).  Bill and I came up with our lines completely independent of each other and will provide comments on each two-line grouping.  You’ll figure it out…

Lines 1-2
DSE
1 – Indiana, Louisville, Kentucky, Ohio State
2 – Kansas, Michigan, NC State, Syracuse

Indiana returns all five starters, including Player of the Year candidate Cody Zeller.  They also have one of the best recruiting classes, including Yogi Ferrell, who I think will make an instant impact for the Hoosiers. Louisville is no pushover, themselves.  Even with Kyle Kuric gone, they return Peyton Siva, Chane Behanan and Gorgui Dieng.  And watch out for Wayne Blackshear.  Kentucky is brand new, but they are full of stud recruits, including #1 recruit Nerlens Noel.  The Ohio State-Kansas game on Dec. 22 could very well decide a #1 seed. Michigan and NC State meet Nov. 27 in what will be great game. Syracuse lost Waiters and Joseph, but never count out Jim Boeheim.

Continue with the rest of the predictions