Former Duke star and current NBA player Shane Battier saw a little too much coincidence in his Blue Devils being set up for a potential Elite Eight showdown with Kentucky. Twenty year ago, the two schools played one of college basketball's all-time classic title games.
Missouri becoming the first 30-win team not to get a top seed was a topic of discussion among many fans…
…But supporters of Missouri's rival Kansas Jayhawks didn't have much sympathy.
North Carolina State snuck into the tournament as an 11 seed, which struck many -- including ESPN's Eamonn Brennan -- as rather lucky.
March Madness is a big-money event for schools, coaches, the NCAA and broadcast networks. CNBC's Darren Rovell reported South Florida coach Stan Heath hauled in a nice bonus for sneaking into a tournament play-in game.
High-prestige academic institutions Harvard and Vanderbilt square off in a first round game. The matchup announcement provided plenty of riffing material for fans and writers including The Big Lead's Jason McIntyre.
March Madness legend and former Davidson star Stephen Curry was happy to see his old team back in the tournament.
North Carolina grabbed the top seed in the Midwest region, and that was fine by Tar Heels point guard Kendall Marshall.
NBA scouts love to evaluate prospects on the March Madness stage. A Connecticut-Kentucky second round matchup would pit two future lottery picks against each other, as Draft Express's Jonathan Givony noted.
Indiana guard Victor Oladipo was ready to travel to Portland for his Hoosiers' first-round game against New Mexico State.
Once a top conference, the Pac-12 only got two teams in this year's tournament and neither look poised for a deep run.
Washington won the league's regular-season title, but didn't make the NCAA Tournament -- a first for a major conference team.
The NCAA held a Facebook contest for 10 lucky fans to get an inside look at the tournament selection process in Atlanta and build their own bracket. The fans acquitted themselves well, only missing out on two teams picked by the actual committee.
At least one Super 10 committee member was proud of the accomplishment.
The release of the tournament field set off a predictable deluge of TV-pundit debate. For advanced stats guru Ken Pomeroy, it was too much to handle.
Former Duke star and current NBA player Shane Battier saw a little too much coincidence in his Blue Devils being set up for a potential Elite Eight showdown with Kentucky. Twenty year ago, the two schools played one of college basketball's all-time classic title games.
Missouri becoming the first 30-win team not to get a top seed was a topic of discussion among many fans…
…But supporters of Missouri's rival Kansas Jayhawks didn't have much sympathy.
North Carolina State snuck into the tournament as an 11 seed, which struck many -- including ESPN's Eamonn Brennan -- as rather lucky.
March Madness is a big-money event for schools, coaches, the NCAA and broadcast networks. CNBC's Darren Rovell reported South Florida coach Stan Heath hauled in a nice bonus for sneaking into a tournament play-in game.
High-prestige academic institutions Harvard and Vanderbilt square off in a first round game. The matchup announcement provided plenty of riffing material for fans and writers including The Big Lead's Jason McIntyre.
March Madness legend and former Davidson star Stephen Curry was happy to see his old team back in the tournament.
North Carolina grabbed the top seed in the Midwest region, and that was fine by Tar Heels point guard Kendall Marshall.
NBA scouts love to evaluate prospects on the March Madness stage. A Connecticut-Kentucky second round matchup would pit two future lottery picks against each other, as Draft Express's Jonathan Givony noted.
Indiana guard Victor Oladipo was ready to travel to Portland for his Hoosiers' first-round game against New Mexico State.
Once a top conference, the Pac-12 only got two teams in this year's tournament and neither look poised for a deep run.
Washington won the league's regular-season title, but didn't make the NCAA Tournament -- a first for a major conference team.
The NCAA held a Facebook contest for 10 lucky fans to get an inside look at the tournament selection process in Atlanta and build their own bracket. The fans acquitted themselves well, only missing out on two teams picked by the actual committee.
At least one Super 10 committee member was proud of the accomplishment.
The release of the tournament field set off a predictable deluge of TV-pundit debate. For advanced stats guru Ken Pomeroy, it was too much to handle.
With Sunday's announcement of the NCAA Tournament field, March Madness is officially upon us. As has been the case since before the Internet ruled our lives, Selection Sunday sparked a barrage of fan reactions and analyst prognostications.
This year — as is the norm nowadays — most of the conversation took place on Twitter. Fans griped and bragged, writers dropped knowledge, and players expressed their eagerness to get the madness started. Check out the gallery above for a flavor of the chatter in the hours following the Big Dance's big announcement.
Who dominated the Twitter talk? Bubble teams. Iona, who many felt did not deserve an at-large bid, was mentioned nearly 12,000 times over two hours beginning with the commencement of the tournament selection show at 6 p.m. Eastern Time. Drexel, who many saw as an egregious snub, was mentioned more than 9,000 times during that span. Check out this chart from the social media research company Fizziology for more on which teams were Sunday's hottest topics:
Tweets discussing Iona broke almost evenly between positive and negative sentiment (see pie chart at right), which makes sense given how many folks were also happy to see the exciting squad including in the field. Of the people who expressed negative feelings about Iona being Big Dance bound, 20% mentioned Marshall as a more deserving team, according to Fizziology. Drexel was identified as a worthy replacement by 11%, and Northwestern, Seton Hall, Nevada and Washington by 2% apiece.
The Twittersphere was less divided on Drexel, though. Of the Dragons' 9,321 mentions, Fizziology counts 71% as positive — meaning people indicating they should be have received a bid. Just 5% were negative, arguing they were rightly excluded, and about a quarter took a neutral stance on the issue. Check out this comparison of how sentiment about Drexel and Iona compared:
Now that the tournament field is set, attention has started turning to March Madness's second great tradition, after bracket bloviation — gambling. Head over to basketball data-visualization site Hoopism.com for a live-updating, interactive look at how fans are betting on the tournament's first round games.
What were the best Selection Sunday tweets you saw? Does this data match what appeared in your feed? Who were the biggest snubs and most wrongfully-included teams? Let us know in the comments.
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario