GMG_Dallas

And with a NET of 39. Key is they played a strong OOC with very good wins so the Quad 3 and 4 losses in conference didn't matter.

Teams all over the NET get in every year. Your chances are better in the 40s than 60s where we are now. Had we not dropped those games, we'd likely have finished in the 30s with a better resume than we had at 38 a few years back when we were in CUSA.

Yes they wanted brands, however their website specifically states the Big East, Big 12, and Big 10 each get 2 bids. Then an at-large process fills in the rest but as you can see from the bracket, 11 of 16 are from those 3 conferences. Three are then from the new PAC, making me think there may be a PAC/Fox deal set to be announced. I agree, our leadership should make a push to join that conference out west...

I'd take him. His height might be what deters bigger programs but if he wants to come and be Perry 2.0, I'm here for it. I do like Brumaugh from Tulane but he'll likely be out of price range.

On the broadcast, they panned over to him several times while on the bench. Sock and shoe were off and he was receiving treatment. Temple game was not meaningless. Losing to UAB once is fine. Twice can't happen when you're trying to make the NCAA tournament. Prior to the UTSA loss, our NET was 45. For comparison, Memphis is currently at 49. Only two schools in the 40s who didn't make the tournament are 44 Boise State and 46 SMU. We had a chance and blew it. None of those losses were meaningless.

I also noticed 3 future PAC schools in Boise State, Washington State, and Oregon State. Wonder if the new PAC will have a Fox TV deal. Certainly an opportunity for them to showcase their new conference.

No buy-in that I've seen. The priority is schools from conferences with Fox TV deals as Fox put together the tourney. Basically they want their product on TV as much as possible and will pay for it. Most of the schools who received bid invites are from those P6 conferences with Fox TV deals being the Big 10, Big 12, and Big East.

So is our hope to be where we were 2 years ago or to make progress on a yearly basis? We promoted Hodge to keep the same upward momentum, not to stay stagnant. Had 2023 not happened, my expectations would be different. Were we anytime around the Benford era, my expectations would be different. We've been fairly successful for 8 seasons now. It's time for a breakthrough.

You're right. I really expected to lose to UTSA, Temple without their leading scorer, and UAB with an injured star player coming off 40 minutes the night before. Record is meaningless if it's against a weak schedule.

I may be off a bit but Utah State lost their number 1, 3 and 5 leading scorers and more to the portal and lost their HC to Washington (leading scorer followed him there). They still went 26-7 and made the NCAA tourney with a new head coach.

Why should my expectations be any lower? Every team is dealing with the portal and loses players to graduation. Other than Memphis, our schedule did not have a single team with top to bottom better talent than us. I'm not saying that in hindsight. I looked at what we had coming in and felt very good about the transfers. Lorient was the only surprise and Newell didn't meet my expectations so I guess that's a wash. We had a weak schedule and underachieved. It is what it is.

My expectations were to make the conference championship finals and hopefully make the NCAA tournament. Every single team is dealing with transfers and graduations. If they can make it work, so can we.

I've read multiple fan boards where it says the payout is $500,000 for the winning team. This blog says $500,000 to be split evenly amongst all players on the team so about $40,000 per player? https://voiceofmotown.com/west-virginia-expected-to-play-in-new-tournament-the-crown/

No clue about who sends invites first. All I know is conferences with Fox TV contracts get priority for Crown invites as the games are to be televised on Fox.

As a fan, the home games are cool but I'd rather get a chance to win NIL money to reward the current players. I think future recruits would be intrigued by that as well.

Just made a thread about this before seeing this comment. Mods, feel free to merge the two or delete mine. I also would have preferred the Crown. Bigger names and the winning team will get NIL money to give their players.

Which tournament would you have preferred to be in? The Crown is pushing for exposure and the winning team will get NIL money for their players but no home games. The NIT gets home games but that's about it. Brackets below:

The Grand Canyon coach? You mean Bryce Drew, brother of Baylor coach Scott Drew? Yeah, I'd say he's pretty legit.

It's up the columnists and committees to realize metrics don't paint the whole picture. North Texas won 19 games last season and was not an at-large candidate for the NCAA tourney. That team included Edwards who's 7th in the SEC in ppg this season, Rubin Jones who's an elite defender on the potential BIG 10 champions, Aaron Scott who's an elite defender and started almost every game for the Big East champions, and CJ Noland who's averaging 20+ minutes per game for MW regular season champs and expected at-large New Mexico. No respect for them in Denton, though. It's bull and there's no way of defending it.

Fair. I'd have given a 7 for winning the regular season AAC title and/or making today's game. Two things I think were necessary to be a strong at-large candidate. Contention for an NIT home game is below what I think we're capable of at this point. With all that McCasland and Hodge accomplished here, I think it's fair to draw the line at NCAA at-large bids when evaluating how successful the season was. We haven't been an at-large yet but getting such a bid would be a clear indication of national respect.

Almost every team in the top 25 has transfers in their starting 5. Rubin Jones started and played 29 minutes for Michigan yesterday. He'll likely start today in the BIG 10 finals. The other 4 starters for Michigan are first year transfer Goldin, first year transfer Wolf, first year transfer Donaldson, and 2nd year transfer Burnett. In other words, all transfers and 4 in their first season with Michigan and a new head coach. St Johns won the Big East yesterday with two first year transfers starting, one of which is Aaron Scott, and two second year transfers also starting. Two of their bench rotational guys are first year transfers and their 3rd rotational guy transferred in two seasons ago. I'm not going to excuse poor early season performance because transfers and chemistry and stuff. These highmajor schools make it work. Figure it out. What kills me is the amount of teams winning with mid-major transfers when those same players couldn't make the big dance as an at-large at their mid-major schools. Why does a player gain more respect the second he puts on a Big East, Big 10, Big 12, or SEC patch? If Florida and Michigan win today, the AAC will have lost transfers who started for the Big 10, Big East, and SEC champions. Maybe the committee should start respecting where those players come from, not just where they've gone to.

Outside of Memphis, none of those teams make the tournament unless they win their conference. I'm not trashing McNeese or High Point but they won the Southland and Big South. Good for them but they aren't world beaters. Just the best of a bad conference. Giving a 6 is not a shot at our program but if you score rate this season a 7 or higher, what would you have rated a team that won the conference auto bid but lost in the first round of the big dance? What about a team that made a run in the big dance? Truth is, we finished 2nd in the conference regular season and lost in the semis of the conference Tourney. In other words, we won nothing. A 7 would have been at least making the conference finals. Winning the auto bid today but losing in the first round of the big dance would have been an 8. A run to the sweet sixteen (week 2 of the NCAA tourney) a 9 and anything better a 10. I'm not trying to set expectations too high but I'm also not going to give our season rave reviews for doing ok when we're capable of better. This program has won 20+ games 6 times since McCasland took over and hasn't had a losing season in these past 8 seasons. A 24 win season is fun but without meaningful March basketball it's all for nothing. It's time to raise the bar a bit.

"Didn't go to college to play school."

6. Good season, not great. We won a bunch of games mostly against bad teams. 7 would have been making the conference tourney championship game.

We lost to UTSA, Temple, and UAB twice. There's room for error but not that much. This will be a 1 bid league unless UAB wins tomorrow.